The Suicide
The Suicide - meaning Summary
Annihilation as Final Act
The poem imagines the speaker's suicide as an act that would erase not only themselves but the entire cosmos and human history. The speaker claims power to obliterate monuments, currencies, continents and memories, reducing the past to dust. The closing images—last sunset, last bird—emphasize absolute ending and solitude. The speaker refuses legacy, insisting on bequeathing no continuity or meaning to anyone.
Read Complete AnalysesNot a star will remain in the night. The night itself will not remain. I will die and with me the sum Of the intolerable universe. I’ll erase the pyramids, the coins, The continents and all the faces. I’ll erase the accumulated past. I’ll make dust of history, dust of dust. Now I gaze at the last sunset. I am listening to the last bird. I bequeath nothingness to no-one.
Translations into English by A. S. Kline
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