Poppy or Charms

There's lots of personification in this poem.

The speaker gives death human characteristics.

Death is mighty, dreadful, and a slave to chance, kings, and desperate men.. Meaning death can only occur by chance, or if a leader wills it (like Hitler or Saddam Hussein) or like a man who kills someone or himself (or a woman).

The end of the poem reveals that death can die! We all wish that death could die.. but if we want it to, we have to die ourselves. So it's not really worth it.

I think what the speaker wants to get across is that death is inevitable.. so you really shouldn't think it's "mighty" or "dreadful".. it's just a fact of life. Eventually "our best of men with thee do go".

I like how the speaker says that death "dwells"... in sickness, poison and war.. It's like saying that death lives, which is a paradox! I think.

So death lives on Earth, but dies in the after-life. Once you get to heaven (or hell), you can't re-die.