fusion of ill-de¤ned and contradictory rules said (but not evidenced,) to
be of divine institution. If annihilation is to follow death, I shall not be
aware of the annihilation, and therefore shall not care a straw about it.”^15
Unlike twentieth-century existentialists who are said to have looked
squarely into the eye of the nada and accepted it philosophically, the per-
sona sti®es his outcry against the possibility of an eternal nothingness
and, in a sudden change of tone, lustily reasserts his faith in the existence
of a satisfactory continuum, capping his statement of acceptance with a
bold metaphysical pun. Responding to his own rhetorical question, “Do
you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?”
he declares,
Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot de¤ne, but I know it is good,
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.This jaunty af¤rmation implies that the persona has achieved a stay
against doubt: he now feels con¤dent of his immortality and believes
himself eligible to take his place in humanity’s endless procession toward
perfection. Still, his expression of certainty is tautological. In effect he
says that he is certain of eternal life because he feels certain of eternal life.
The governing clauses of the poem’s two ¤nal stanzas—“I swear I see”
and “I swear I think”—indicate that the supposedly visionary persona is
still scanning the phenomenal world for emblems and analogues that will
con¤rm his intuitions of spiritual continuity. The sensuous penultimate
stanza declares:
I swear I see now that every thing has an eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground.... the weeds of the
sea have.... the animals.But the welter of abstract nouns in the poem’s ¤nal stanza weakens its
immediacy, creating the impression that the persona is no longer address-
ing a working-class audience but that he is waxing “philosophical.”
I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
The exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous ®oat is for it,“Great Is Death” / 87