Blog #8 Poem #4
Death, Be Not Proud

"And soonest our best men with thee do go"

Essentially, the speaker is saying "Only the good die young". This is a quote that I've heard over and over throughout my short life whenever I lost a family member or close friend. I've always tried to figure out what it meant but I was never able to understand it completely. I was taught that all people are good even if they do bad things. And that is something I truly do believe. I believe every person has at least an ounce, if not more, of good moral in them. And also, it totally sucks when people die young! We make these life plans and try to follow through with them so that we can die with dignity, having accomplished something great. 
I guess what the speaker is trying to say is that only the good people aren't scared of death because they know that it's peaceful, not painful. I understand where the speaker is coming from, although I don't understand how we aren't supposed to fear death. The thought of death, to me, is the #1 scariest thing on my list of scary things. I mean, we make this plan for ourselves, right? We go to school, we get an education, get a job, make a family, etc, FOR WHAT?! To die and have everyone forget about you?! I mean, the concept of life totally makes sense to me, but death doesn't. Why do we die? Other than science, why does it happen? If religion is true and people believe that after death you live on eternally in a place called "heaven", why can't we just live eternally here with our loved ones?
The poem has brought me to the point where I don't even know what to think right now. This poem makes sense to me in the sense that the speaker is trying to make death seem like no big deal, although I don't quite understand the whole concept of "only the good die young" when we are taught to map out a perfect life for ourselves and then slowly die with it. So many things in this poem make sense to me, but even more things in this poem boggle my mind.