I Want to Die in My Own Bed
I Want to Die in My Own Bed - meaning Summary
Private Death Amid War
The speaker confronts collective violence and heroic expectation but insists on a modest, personal end. Against images of battle and biblical figures—armies from Gilgal, the stopped sun at Gibeon, Samson—the poem contrasts public sacrifice and forced heroism with a quiet longing for private death "in my own bed." It emphasizes the tension between duty to the many and the desire for individual dignity and intimacy at life’s end.
Read Complete AnalysesAll night the army came up from Gilgal To get to the killing field, and that's all. In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead. I want to die in My own bed. Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny, I'm always the few and they are the many. I must answer. They can interrogate My head. But I want to die in My own bed. The sun stood still in Gibeon. Forever so, it's willing to illuminate those waging battle and killing. I may not see My wife when her blood is shed, But I want to die in My own bed. Samson, his strength in his long black hair, My hair they sheared when they made me a hero Perforce, and taught me to charge ahead. I want to die in My own bed. I saw you could live and furnish with grace Even a lion's den, if you've no other place. I don't even mind to die alone, to be dead, But I want to die in My own bed.
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