Death Be Not Proud Poem by Dave Dafes

Death be not proud.
For thou art nothing
But a coward ‘n' a villain,
Thou snatched away the unarmed,
When they least expect,
And cut down the youth in their prime,

Thou avoid them that expect thee,
The gray headed thou liveth alone,
To wallow pitiably in senility,
While thou fled,
When thou art challenged to a duel.

Thou lieth in wait,
Lurking in dark places as a wolf for its prey,
Thou pounce on thy victim as a thief in the night,
Thou caused little children to weep,
When thou doth rob them of their milk.
Young maidens thou made to mourn,
When thou snatch away their grooms.

Who can defeat thee o death?
Who can bind thee with fetters?
Even fetters of iron & imprison thee in Tartarus?
Who can withstand thy power?
Or resist thy enchantment?
Great kings of old were struck down
By thy lightning bolt,
Even mighty men, they fell by thy scythe
When thou doth snap the thread of their lives,


Thou frore the blood of the brave,
Melts the heart of champions,
When they thought of thee,
Thou capture the rich in his merriment,
While the poor…., the poor, thou let
To suffer in his calamity,
Thou art partial in choosing thy victim,

Thou strangled the dreamer in his sleep,
Frustrates the scheme of the crafty
That their hands may not perform their enterprise,
Thou rid humanity of the righteous,
While thou lets alone the wicked
To plague humanity with their evil deeds,

Depart from me you vile Spirit,
For I esteem thee not,
Neither do I acknowledge thy power,
Thou art a failure, for thou taketh away the body,
But the soul thou canst touch not,

What is the body that thou taketh
O death? Is it not a mere casing?
Even a rag made of dust that returns
To whence it came,
If thou be powerful as thou claimed,
Stretch forth thy hands o grim reaper
And thy scythe o Chronos,
Touch our souls, for then shall
We tremble at the sight of thee
And acknowledge thy power,

Death be not proud,
For thou art a coward and a villain,
Thou may cut us off in our numbers,
But in the apocalypse,
Will thou ‘n' Charon in Tartarus’ bowers perish,
So death, be not proud.