Death Is Nothing At All
A poem for such a day as this
— is a column where I share my favourite poems and their creators, some of whom might be familiar and some not.
Whatever the case, I hope they elicit a smile, a grin, a tear, a smirk … or, in Kafka’s words — be an axe for the frozen sea within us.
As always — it would be great to hear your thoughts.
a poem for such a day as today is:
Death Is Nothing At All
By Henry Scott-Holland
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
Henry Scott Holland was born on 27th of January 1847 at Ledbury, Herefordshire in the UK.
He was educated at Eton where he was a pupil of the influential Master William Johnson Cory, and at Balliol College, Oxford where he took a first-class degree in greats (classic). During his time in Oxford he was greatly influenced by T.H. Green. He was ordained as a deacon in 1872 and as a priest in 1874.
After graduation, Holland was elected as a Student (fellow) of Christ Church, Oxford. In 1884, he left Oxford for St Paul’s Cathedral where he was appointed canon.
He was keenly interested in social justice and formed PESEK (Politics, Economics, Socialism, Ethics and Christianity) which blamed capitalist exploitation for contemporary urban poverty. In 1889, he formed the Christian Social Union.
In 1910, he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, a post he held until his death on 17 March 1918.
While at St Paul’s Cathedral, Holland delivered a sermon in May 1910 following the death of King Edward VII, titled Death the King of Terrors, in which he explores the natural but seemingly contradictory responses to death: the fear of the unexplained and the belief in continuity. It is from his discussion of the latter that Death is nothing at all, emerged.
He is buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church, Cuddesdon, near Oxford. Because of his surname, Mary Gladstone referred to him affectionately as “Flying Dutchman” and “Fliegende Holländer”.
