In line with much classic Christian thought, Donne sees life after death in two stages: first, a short sleep, then an eternal waking.3 And death shall be no more. Donne grasped what we shall discover to be the central New Testament belief: that at the last, death will be not simply redefined but defeated. God’s intention is not to let death have its way with us. If the promised final future is simply that immortal souls leave behind their mortal bodies, then death still rules—since that is a description not of the defeat of death but simply of death itself, seen from one angle.
