Death be not Proud | ISC Class 12 English Literature Notes

This note covers John Donne and the poem, its developing argument, the speaker's challenge to Death, sleep and awakening, poetic form and devices, themes, tone, key quotations and vocabulary.

Who wrote the poem, and what kind of text is it?

About John Donne

John Donne was an English poet who lived from 1572 to 1631 and became an Anglican cleric, a minister of the Church of England. His poetry explores faith, meaning religious trust, love and the possibility of salvation, meaning spiritual deliverance.

Donne is associated with metaphysical poetry, poetry that combines intellectual argument, strong feeling and striking comparisons. In this poem, a frightening subject becomes the object of a closely organised challenge. The speaker reasons with Death while also mocking its pride.

The text and its speaking voice

“Death be not Proud” belongs to Donne's Holy Sonnets. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with an organised pattern of rhyme, the correspondence of ending sounds. Here the religious concern is whether death can permanently defeat human life.

The speaker, the voice speaking in the poem, addresses Death directly. Death means both the ending of bodily life and an imagined being that can feel proud, make mistakes and receive a rebuke. This double meaning makes the argument dramatic.

The voice expresses confidence that human beings will wake into eternal life, life without end. Read this as the speaker's religious conviction. The poem acknowledges bodily death through its references to bones, poison, war and sickness, while denying that death has the final victory.

There is no narrated meeting in a named place. The central encounter is an argument between a speaking human voice and an abstract power given human qualities. Death does not reply; the speaker controls both the accusations and the conclusion.

What is the summary of the poem, movement by movement?

The poem forms one continuous fourteen-line stanza, a group of lines presented together. Its argument can be studied in four movements, or stages of thought. These divisions explain the development without treating them as four separately printed stanzas.

Lines 1 to 4: challenging Death's reputation

The speaker begins by ordering Death to abandon its pride. He acknowledges that some people have called it powerful and terrifying, but rejects that description. The qualification matters: he does not claim that everyone shares the same opinion.

Death imagines that it defeats the people it takes. The speaker denies that their destruction is complete and extends this assurance to himself. His apparent vulnerability becomes a source of defiance because he refuses to accept Death's interpretation of its own actions.

Lines 5 to 8: turning death into rest and release

Rest and sleep are presented as pictures, meaning likenesses or representations, of death. Since these familiar experiences give pleasure, the speaker reasons that death itself must provide still greater pleasure. This is an argument by comparison, not a description of an observed afterlife.

He then says that the best people go with Death soonest. Their bodies find rest, while their souls, their spiritual selves, obtain delivery, meaning release or liberation. The loss of bodily activity is therefore reinterpreted through the benefit that the speaker expects beyond it.

Lines 9 to 12: exposing dependence and inferior power

Death is called a slave of fate, chance, kings and desperate men. Fate means events understood as predetermined; chance means events occurring unpredictably. The list makes Death dependent on forces and people rather than an independent ruler.

Its companions are poison, war and sickness. The speaker then says that poppy or charms can produce sleep as well as Death, and better. Poppy refers here to its sleep-producing effect; charms are spells credited with magical effects.

He ends this movement by asking why Death swells with pride. Having reduced its independence and questioned its special ability, he presents its self-importance as unjustified.

Lines 13 to 14: announcing the final reversal

Death becomes a brief sleep followed by eternal awakening. Eternal means without end. The speaker moves from defending himself to speaking of a shared future through the word “we”.

The conclusion declares that death itself will cease. The supposed destroyer becomes the thing destroyed. The ending supplies the fullest explanation of the opening refusal to fear Death: bodily death is temporary within the speaker's belief in unending life.

How does the opening challenge Death's pride?

A command before an explanation

The opening uses an imperative, a grammatical form that gives a command. The speaker does not ask Death for mercy or request a delay. He speaks as someone entitled to correct its attitude, reversing the expected relationship between human weakness and death's power.

The title therefore identifies the precise object of attack: pride, or excessive belief in one's own importance. The argument concerns Death's supposed greatness as much as its frightening effects. Each later comparison takes away a reason for boasting.

The word “though” introduces a concession, an acknowledgement of an opposing view before challenging it. The speaker recognises Death's reputation among some people, then refuses to accept reputation as proof. This makes the opening argumentative as well as emotional.

Why is Death's view of itself mistaken?

In line 3, overthrow means defeat or bring down. The verb gives Death the imagined role of a conqueror. However, the speaker locates that victory in Death's own thinking, which prepares the reader to question whether it is a genuine victory.

Calling Death poor diminishes it. The adjective can suggest pity, but here it also sounds mocking: something thought to be terrifying is addressed as weak or unfortunate. The speaker's confidence deprives Death of the respect that pride expects.

The opening denial concerns ultimate destruction. It should be read alongside the later references to bodily rest and eternal awakening. The speaker does not claim that bones cannot cease moving or that sickness cannot end a life.

The movement from people in general to the individual speaker makes the challenge personal. He does not offer a detached definition of death. He places his own apparent safety within the conviction that Death cannot permanently destroy those it seems to conquer.

Why does the speaker compare death with rest and sleep?

From a familiar pleasure to a disputed conclusion

The poem builds an analogy, an explanatory comparison, between sleep and death. Rest and sleep are familiar experiences associated here with pleasure. Calling them pictures of death encourages the reader to judge death through something less frightening.

The direction of the reasoning is significant. The speaker first identifies rest and sleep as likenesses of death, then argues from the pleasure of those likenesses to the greater pleasure of what they represent. His conclusion is stronger than merely saying that death looks like sleep.

Much more preserves the force of the comparison. The speaker expects death to offer greater benefit, rather than simply equal comfort. The confidence belongs to his argument and should not be softened into a claim that he merely hopes it might be pleasant.

What happens to the body and soul?

The references to bones and soul distinguish the physical body from the spiritual self. The bones stand for the body that rests. The soul is imagined as obtaining freedom, so physical stillness does not represent the ending of every aspect of existence.

The phrase about the best people going soonest belongs to the speaker's case against Death. He turns an apparent reason for sorrow into an argument for release. It is not a statistical rule about how long morally good people live.

The word delivery is especially important. In this context it concerns liberation, rather than transporting an object. That meaning connects the departure of the best people with freedom for the soul, giving death a function within the speaker's religious hope.

Why does the comparison return?

Sleep appears again when poppy and charms are compared with Death's action, and once more in the closing awakening. These returns develop the argument. Sleep first offers comfort, then weakens Death's uniqueness, and finally makes death seem temporary.

The image thus links several stages of thought. What initially resembles a comforting comparison becomes the means of explaining how Death can lose its power altogether.

How do lines 9 to 12 reduce Death's power?

A supposed ruler becomes a slave

Slave means someone forced to serve another's power. The speaker applies this degrading description to Death, which has been treated as a conqueror. The change in rank is central: Death is presented as carrying out consequences shaped by something else.

The list includes fate, chance, kings and desperate men. It combines impersonal causes with human agents. Desperate men means people driven to extreme actions by desperation. The poem names no particular king or individual, so its argument does not depend on a specific historical incident.

Fate and chance also differ from each other. One suggests determination, the other unpredictability. Placing both above Death strips it of control under either explanation of events. Death's pride seems unjustified whether events appear planned or accidental.

Unimpressive companions and competitors

Death dwells with poison, war and sickness. Dwell means live or remain with. These associations undermine its dignity: the being that claims greatness is placed among harmful conditions and agents of bodily destruction.

The argument then compares Death's stroke, meaning its blow or action of killing, with poppy and charms. They can produce sleep as well as Death, and better. This comparison denies Death a unique claim even to the sleep-like condition on which its power appears to depend.

The speaker does not supply a practical instruction about using poppy or charms. They function as examples within his challenge. Their purpose is to make Death seem less exceptional, not to describe a method for securing eternal life.

The final question is a rhetorical question, one asked to emphasise a point rather than seek information. After the list of dependencies and rivals, the implied answer is that Death has no sound reason for pride.

How does the ending explain that Death will die?

A short interval and an endless future

The closing two lines are a couplet, a pair of successive lines working together. They bring the argument to its decisive conclusion. Death is reduced to a short sleep, while the life that follows has no ending.

The contrast between short and eternally changes the scale on which death is judged. A brief interruption cannot count as a permanent victory over life. Within the speaker's belief, awakening exposes the limitations of Death's supposed conquest.

The verb describing awakening is active. Those whom Death supposedly overthrows are imagined rising into a condition beyond its reach. This completes the sleep comparison by including what ordinary sleep leads the reader to expect: waking again.

How does the paradox work?

A paradox is an apparently contradictory statement that expresses a meaningful idea when examined. Saying that Death will die seems impossible if death is understood simply as the ending of life. It becomes intelligible when Death represents a power that can cease to operate.

The conclusion therefore does not require imagining a physical body belonging to Death. The imagined enemy loses its existence or authority because eternal life leaves it no further work to do. The apparent contradiction sharpens the claim of complete defeat.

Resurrection means rising from death into life. The awakening expresses the speaker's Christian confidence in resurrection and life beyond bodily death. The poem gives this conviction a triumphant voice without describing the place or detailed circumstances of that future life.

The final reversal also answers the opening command. Death should not be proud because it is temporary, dependent and destined to disappear. The ending gathers the earlier challenges into a larger claim: the supposed conqueror cannot survive the eternal life of those it threatened.

The change from the opening “me” to the closing “we” broadens the assurance. The speaker's personal defiance becomes an expression of shared hope, while Death remains the isolated being addressed and judged.

How do poetic devices, rhyme and imagery shape the argument?

Direct address and personification

Apostrophe is direct address to an absent person or an abstract thing as though it could hear. The opening addresses Death, and this relationship continues to the last line. The reader overhears a confrontation rather than receiving an impersonal explanation.

Personification gives human qualities to something non-human. Death can feel pride in line 1, think itself victorious in line 3, serve masters in line 9 and swell with self-importance in line 12. These qualities make it possible to rebuke and ridicule Death.

The devices work together but are not identical. Apostrophe explains whom the speaker addresses; personification explains how that addressee becomes a character-like opponent. Death remains an abstract idea, not a fully described person with a biography.

Comparisons and images

Imagery is language that evokes a sensory or concrete impression. Rest, sleep and bones make the discussion of mortality tangible. Mortality means the condition of being subject to death. The poem approaches that abstract condition through experiences and objects the reader can imagine.

A metaphor identifies one thing with another without using an explicit comparison such as “like”. Calling Death a slave in line 9 is a metaphor for dependence. The sleep comparison develops across lines 5 to 8 and returns in lines 11 to 13.

This extended comparison can be discussed as a conceit, a sustained, intellectually developed comparison. Its force lies in what the speaker does with it: pleasure, rival ways of producing sleep and eventual awakening become successive arguments against Death.

Rhyme and the pattern of thought

A rhyme scheme records the pattern of line-ending sounds using letters. Each letter labels a sound group, and repeated letters indicate corresponding rhymes. The conventional scheme here is ABBA ABBA CDDC EE.

The first A group contains thee, me, be and delivery; the B group contains so, overthrow, flow and go. The C group is men and then, and the D group is dwell and well.

The closing E pair is eternally and die. These do not make an exact rhyme in many present-day pronunciations. Keep that sound difference in mind instead of describing every pairing as an identical modern rhyme.

The octave, the first eight lines, challenges Death and connects it with rest. The sestet, the remaining six lines, exposes dependence and concludes with awakening. A volta, or turn in thought, occurs as line 9 shifts from comfort to an attack on Death's status.

What themes and message emerge from the poem?

The limits of apparent power

A theme is a recurring or central idea developed by a literary work. Here Death's reputation is tested against its actual position within the speaker's argument. Being feared by some people does not establish that Death possesses independent or permanent power.

The movement from conqueror to slave develops this theme. Fate, chance and human actions stand above Death, while poison, war and sickness surround it. The speaker dismantles grandeur by drawing attention to dependence and unattractive associations.

Pride exposed by reasoning

Pride connects the first command with the question near the end. The speaker does not merely announce that Death is weak. He offers comparisons intended to make its self-importance unreasonable: sleep is pleasant, rivals can induce it, and eternal waking ends Death's role.

The message is not a general argument against every form of confidence. The speaker himself is confident. The distinction is between Death's unsupported boasting and the assurance that the speaker grounds in his conviction of life beyond death.

Faith in life beyond bodily death

Faith, meaning religious trust or conviction, provides the foundation of the conclusion. The body can rest while the soul is released; a short sleep can be followed by eternal waking. Physical death and permanent extinction are therefore separated.

The poem's hope depends on this belief. Its confident language should be explained from within the speaker's religious outlook, rather than converted into a scientific demonstration or a promise that people will avoid bodily suffering.

Fear transformed through familiar experience

The rest and sleep comparison changes the emotional meaning of death. Instead of approaching it exclusively through terror, the speaker associates it with pleasure, release and a temporary interval. Familiar experience becomes a way to challenge an intimidating idea.

Together, these themes produce a message of spiritual defiance. Death can seem overwhelming in bodily life, yet the speaker refuses to grant it ultimate authority. His final confidence rests on the belief that life continues after its temporary interruption.

How do tone and word choices develop the confrontation?

From defiance to reasoning and ridicule

Tone means the attitude conveyed by the speaking voice. The opening tone is defiant: the speaker gives Death an order and rejects its reputation. There is no gradual approach to the subject; the confrontation begins immediately.

The explanation then becomes more reasoned. Words that introduce causes, comparisons and consequences connect each claim to the next. This argumentative movement matters because the poem seeks to make fear lose its justification, rather than simply replace fear with loud confidence.

The description of Death as poor and as a slave adds mockery, language that diminishes or ridicules its target. The question about swelling with pride treats Death's self-importance as something that deserves exposure.

Pronouns and the final assurance

The older pronouns thou, thee and thy mean you, you and your respectively. Thou is used as a subject, thee as an object, and thy indicates possession. Their repeated use keeps Death directly before the speaker.

Forms such as art, dost, canst and shalt mean are, do, can and shall. Recognising these forms makes the argument easier to follow without changing its force or replacing its distinctions.

The final tone is triumphant and assured. The speaker does not end by asking whether life might continue. He announces eternal awakening and Death's disappearance. The reader can recognise the certainty of the voice while also identifying the religious conviction that sustains it.

The pronouns give the ending particular force: the human community becomes “we”, but Death remains “thou”. Those apparently defeated share the future; the supposed victor is singled out for extinction.

Which key quotations support close-reading answers?

A close reading explains how particular words or structures create meaning. A useful answer connects a short quotation with its context, identifies the relevant feature and explains its effect. Naming a device alone does not show how it advances this poem's argument.

Opening challenge and the sleep comparison

“Death, be not proud”

Speaker to Death, line 1: the opening command attacks its self-importance.

The imperative places the speaker in a position of authority. Combined with direct address, it makes Death an opponent to be corrected. The later arguments explain why this command is justified within the speaker's belief.

“though some have called thee”

Speaker to Death, line 1: the concession acknowledges a limited claim about its reputation.

Some must remain some. This qualification records what certain people have said, while leaving the speaker free to dispute their description. Replacing it with everyone changes the poem's wording and meaning.

“which but thy pictures be”

Speaker to Death, line 5: rest and sleep are its likenesses.

But here means merely or only. The comparison prepares the claim that if these likenesses bring pleasure, death should bring more. The words support an explanation of the argument, not just a label such as imagery.

Dependence, pride and defeat

“Thou art slave”

Speaker to Death, line 9: the attack shifts to its dependence on other powers.

The metaphor reverses Death's apparent rank. A full explanation connects this degradation with the named masters in the surrounding line, rather than inventing a particular ruler or historical event.

“why swell'st thou then?”

Speaker to Death, line 12: the rhetorical question challenges pride after the comparison with poppy and charms.

Swell'st means swell, here grow inflated with pride. The question presses Death to defend a status that the preceding argument has already undermined. It anticipates no genuine reply.

“Death, thou shalt die.”

Speaker to Death, line 14: the concluding paradox announces the end of its power.

Explain the apparent contradiction through eternal awakening. Death dies in the sense that its operation ceases. This links the ending to the opening challenge and shows why the speaker can treat a terrifying power as temporary.

Glossary

• Thou — An older form of you, used when the person addressed is the grammatical subject.
• Thee — An older form of you, used when the person addressed is the grammatical object.
• Thy — An older form of your, indicating something belonging to the person being addressed.
• Dreadful — Causing great fear or terror, a description of Death that the speaker rejects.
• Overthrow — To defeat or bring down, describing the victory Death mistakenly believes it achieves.
• Pictures — Likenesses or representations; rest and sleep are presented as familiar images of death.
• Delivery — Release or liberation, referring here to the freedom the speaker expects for the soul.
• Fate — Events understood as predetermined, named among the powers to which Death is subordinate.
• Chance — Unpredictable occurrence, presented as another force that controls when death can take place.
• Desperate — Driven by extreme need or hopelessness, describing people whose actions can bring about death.
• Dwell — To live or remain with; Death is associated with poison, war and sickness.
• Poppy — The plant invoked for its sleep-producing effect in the speaker's comparison with Death.
• Charms — Spells credited with magical effects, mentioned as another means of producing sleep.
• Stroke — A blow or action, here referring to Death's act of ending bodily life.
• Eternally — Without end, describing the lasting condition of wakefulness imagined after death's short sleep.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Everyone calls Death powerful and terrifying. Correct: The speaker says some people have done so, then challenges their judgement.
• Misconception: The poem promises that the physical body cannot die. Correct: It acknowledges bodily death but denies permanent destruction within the speaker's belief in eternal life.
• Misconception: The poem has four separately printed stanzas. Correct: It is one continuous sonnet; four movements are a way of explaining its developing argument.
• Misconception: Sleep and death are merely equally pleasant. Correct: The speaker reasons that death must yield much more pleasure than its likenesses, rest and sleep.
• Misconception: Death independently controls fate, chance and rulers. Correct: The metaphor of slavery places Death below these forces and human agents.
• Misconception: Poppy and charms provide eternal life. Correct: They are examples of producing sleep; their role is to undermine Death's claim to exceptional power.
• Misconception: The final line describes the physical killing of a living creature called Death. Correct: Its paradox expresses the disappearance of death's power after eternal awakening.
• Misconception: Identifying apostrophe automatically explains personification. Correct: Direct address and giving human qualities are distinct devices, although both sustain this confrontation.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. In the opening of Donne's poem, the speaker commands Death not to be proud, acknowledges that some people call it powerful and terrifying, and rejects their judgement. Explain the command and the significance of “some”. [2 marks]

1. The command rebukes Death's self-importance and establishes the speaker's defiant attitude towards the power he addresses.
2. “Some” limits the claim about Death's reputation. The speaker acknowledges certain people's opinion without saying that everyone shares it.

Q2. The speaker describes rest and sleep as likenesses of Death. They give much pleasure, so he argues that Death must give much more. Explain the three steps of this reasoning. [3 marks]

1. The speaker first establishes a comparison: familiar experiences of rest and sleep resemble death, making an intimidating subject easier to approach.
2. He then identifies pleasure as the benefit of those familiar experiences, giving the comparison a reassuring emotional direction.
3. Finally, he argues that Death, which these experiences merely represent, must provide still greater pleasure. This is the speaker's confident inference from the comparison.

Q3. In lines 7 and 8, the speaker says that the best men go with Death soonest and associates this with rest for their bones and release for their souls. Explain these ideas without treating the statement as a statistical rule. [3 marks]

1. The reference to the best people going soonest forms part of the speaker's argument that death may be understood through its anticipated benefits.
2. Rest for the bones presents bodily death as an ending of physical effort, giving the loss of movement a peaceful meaning.
3. Release for the soul suggests spiritual liberation beyond bodily death. The passage expresses religious confidence rather than measuring how long good people actually live.

Q4. Death is described as a slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men, and as dwelling with poison, war and sickness. Explain how these descriptions undermine its pride. [4 marks]

1. The slave metaphor denies Death independent authority, reducing a supposedly powerful being to a subordinate position.
2. Fate and chance place Death below both predetermined events and unpredictable occurrences, weakening its claim to control outcomes.
3. Kings and desperate men add human agents to the list of masters, making Death dependent on people's actions as well as impersonal forces.
4. Poison, war and sickness are degrading companions for a proud being. Their association with Death weakens the dignity it claims for itself.

Q5. The speaker says that poppy or charms can make people sleep as well as Death and better, then asks why Death swells with pride. Explain the comparison and the function of the question. [3 marks]

1. Poppy and charms serve as alternative means of producing sleep, so Death cannot claim that the effect belongs uniquely to it.
2. The claim that they work as well and better goes beyond equality, presenting Death as inferior even in this limited comparison.
3. The rhetorical question challenges Death to justify its pride after that humiliation. It emphasises the absence of a convincing justification rather than seeking factual information.

Q6. The closing couplet presents death as a short sleep followed by eternal awakening and concludes, “Death, thou shalt die.” Read this in the Christian context of resurrection, meaning rising from death into life. Explain the contrast, the religious belief and the paradox in five points. [5 marks]

1. The contrast sets a brief sleep against an awakening that has no end, making death seem limited in duration.
2. Sleep presents bodily death as a temporary interruption rather than complete and permanent extinction of the people who experience it.
3. The awakening expresses the speaker's religious confidence in life beyond death, commonly understood here through the Christian idea of resurrection.
4. The final claim is paradoxical because death, normally the ending of life, is itself described as undergoing an ending.
5. The contradiction is resolved when Death means a power that ceases to operate. Eternal life leaves that power with no continuing authority.

Q7. Consider this outline of Donne's poem: the speaker commands Death not to be proud; rejects the terrifying reputation given it by some; compares death with pleasurable rest; calls Death dependent on other powers; says poppy and charms produce sleep as well and better; and predicts eternal awakening that ends Death. Explain how the argument develops, using six separate points. [6 marks]

1. The opening command establishes a defiant relationship in which the speaker claims the authority to rebuke Death instead of submitting to it.
2. Rejecting the reputation given by some people separates Death's supposed greatness from what the speaker is willing to accept as true.
3. The comparison with pleasurable rest changes the emotional approach to death, replacing an exclusively terrifying picture with an expectation of comfort.
4. Presenting Death as dependent attacks its status directly: a power controlled by others has weak grounds for claiming independent greatness.
5. Poppy and charms then reduce its distinctiveness, since the sleep-like effect associated with Death can be achieved as well and better by rivals.
6. Eternal awakening completes the argument by making death temporary. The final defeat of Death supplies the strongest reason for the opening command against pride.

Q8. The poem has fourteen lines. Its line endings are: thee, so, overthrow, me, be, flow, go, delivery, men, dwell, well, then, eternally, die. Using the conventional scheme ABBA ABBA CDDC EE, identify the first eight-line pattern, the next four-line pattern and the concluding pair. Note the modern sound qualification for that pair. [4 marks]

1. The first eight lines form the octave with the pattern ABBA ABBA, grouping thee, me, be and delivery against so, overthrow, flow and go.
2. The next four lines follow CDDC: men corresponds with then, while dwell corresponds with well.
3. The final two lines form the concluding couplet, labelled EE in the conventional scheme supplied in the question.
4. Eternally and die are not an exact rhyme in many present-day pronunciations, so the conventional label should not obscure their sound difference.

Key takeaways

• John Donne's sonnet turns an encounter with Death into a sustained argument against its pride and supposed permanent power.
• The speaker acknowledges that some people fear Death's greatness, then rejects their judgement through direct address and reasoning.
• Rest and sleep are likenesses of death; their pleasure supports the speaker's claim that death must offer greater benefit.
• Rest for the body and release for the soul express the religious distinction underlying the speaker's confidence.
• Fate, chance, kings and desperate men expose Death's dependence, while poison, war and sickness diminish its dignity.
• Poppy and charms challenge Death's uniqueness because they can produce sleep as well as Death and better.
• The final paradox announces the ending of Death's power through the speaker's confident vision of eternal awakening.
• Personification, apostrophe, metaphor and the rhetorical question work together to make an abstract argument feel like a confrontation.

Test yourself

What does the qualification “some” preserve in the opening?

It limits the claim about Death's reputation to certain people, rather than saying that everyone regards Death as powerful and terrifying.

Why are rest and sleep called pictures of death?

They are likenesses of death. Their pleasure supports the speaker's inference that death itself must provide even greater pleasure.

What does the soul's delivery mean?

It means release or liberation of the spiritual self, contrasted with the physical body's rest.

Which four masters are named in the slave metaphor?

Fate, chance, kings and desperate men are named as powers or agents on which Death depends.

What is the role of poppy and charms?

They are rival means of producing sleep, used to challenge Death's uniqueness and its justification for pride.

How do apostrophe and personification differ here?

Apostrophe addresses Death directly. Personification gives Death human qualities, including pride, mistaken thinking and a subordinate status.

How does the poem move from personal to shared assurance?

The speaker initially defends himself through “me”, then uses “we” when announcing eternal awakening.

How can Death die in the concluding paradox?

Death dies figuratively when its power ceases. Within the speaker's religious conviction, eternal life leaves no further place for death.