Soliloquy of a Misanthrope
Whenever I am got under my gravestone Sending my flowers up to stare at the church-tower, Gritting my teeth in the chill from the church-floor, I shall praise God heartily, to see gone, As I look round at old acquaintance there, Complacency from the smirk of every man, And every attitude showing its bone, And every mouth confessing its crude shire; But I shall thank God thrice heartily To be lying beside women who grimace Under the commitments of their flesh, And not out of spite or vanity.
This poem from the collection The Hawk in the Rain
Soliloquy of a Misanthrope - meaning Summary
Death Strips Away Pretence
The speaker imagines himself buried beneath a churchyard, looking up at the living and dead with fierce satisfaction. Death removes the politeness, self-importance, and social poses he dislikes: every face and posture becomes brutally exposed. His pleasure is not presented as simple revenge, however, but as relief at seeing human beings freed from pretence and reduced to their unavoidable physical reality.
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