The third-person speaker of Thomas’s poem offers no concrete information about their age, gender, class, or racial identity. All we know is that they possess a gift for emotionally expressive and lyrical speech, which they use to give voice to a unique vision of immortality. This vision appears most clearly in the refrain they repeat six times throughout the poem: “And death shall have no dominion” (lines 1, 9, 10, 18, 19, and 27). Arguably, this refrain is less a statement of fact than an expression of desire. That is, the speaker desires for death to have no power over the domain of life. They want to hold on to a deeper faith conveyed in the cosmic visions that open and close the poem. These visions suggest that the “dominion” of existence is far vaster and more perennial than ordinary ideas about life permit. Although we can interpret these visions as ultimately hopeful and inspiring, it’s also worth asking why the speaker feels the need to insist on death’s lack of dominion. It’s possible that their insistence stems from a deeper feeling of vulnerability. That is, their refusal of death’s power may, paradoxically, express a deeper recognition that death comes for us all.

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