Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"The More He Considered His Death" by Stephen Dobyns is a poignant exploration of the human relationship with mortality, marked by a progression from fear to acceptance, and finally to a bittersweet embrace. Dobyns personifies death, not as a grim reaper, but as an entity that grows more beautiful and vital as the speaker’s life diminishes, transforming the typically morose subject into a reflection on life, potential, and the passage of time.

As the speaker reflects on his own mortality, he envisions his death not as a specter of decay but as a "handsome fellow" — a reflection of a younger self, unmarred by life's adversities. This version of death, almost as a doppelgänger, embodies all the vigor and promise that the speaker feels he has lost. It’s an unusual twist on the typical portrayal of death: as the man wanes, his death waxes, becoming ever more attractive and full of the potential he feels he has squandered or never realized.

The contrast between the man's declining virtues and the burgeoning loveliness of his death is stark. As his "road's mortal constriction" tightens — a metaphor for the increasing limitations that age and declining health impose — his death accrues the virtues of "innocence, compassion, generosity." These are qualities that perhaps the speaker feels he has lost or corrupted along the way, as his "own troubles multiplied." The death he imagines becomes a repository for the purity and goodness that life has eroded in him.

As the poem progresses, death evolves from a concept into a presence with "pure possibility," an embodiment of all the futures that the speaker will not live to see. The idea that his death possesses "all the future" he lacks captures the poignancy of mortality — the realization that life will go on beyond our personal end, full of opportunities we will never experience.

The closing image of death as a child, "eager and full of promise," is profoundly moving. Death, in its final personification, comes not as a conqueror but as a guide, taking the speaker’s hand with the innocence and excitement of a child leading an elder. This gentle image suggests a reconciliation with the end of life; death becomes less a cessation and more a transition to another state of being, one that is approached with the same wonder and potential as a new life.

Through his contemplation of death, Dobyns masterfully transforms the dread of mortality into an appreciation for the life force that continues beyond individual existence. "The More He Considered His Death" becomes an invitation to the reader to ponder their own mortality, not with despair, but with a sense of peace and the recognition that even in our ending, there is beauty and a continuation of possibility.

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