# Death — Poetry character guide > Death in Poetry by George MacDonald. **Role:** supporting **Also known as:** Grim Death, old Death **First appearance:** 0048-death-and-birth ## Snapshot The grim, patient presence that strips the world of grace and beauty, leaving the bereft speaker to cry into a dark that seems to answer nothing. ## Who they are Death works here less as a character than as an absence that reorganizes everything—the speaker sits at a high window, books unopened, class all astray, while the noisy street goes on without them. The tension is between the world's plenty of love and beauty and the mourner's inability to care for any of it, and between the old religion's promise and the felt distance of a God whose countenance seems unkind. Death's role in the early-middle arc is to hollow the speaker out so thoroughly that only a naked cry remains—the condition, the poems suggest, for the vision that follows. ## In the story ### [The Homeless Ghost](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-homeless-ghost) Referenced indirectly through the ghost's condition and the protagonist's eventual fate. ### [A Story of the Sea-Shore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-story-of-the-sea-shore) Implied in the maiden's grief and the imagery of the sea as a consuming force. ### [The Death of the Old Year](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-death-of-the-old-year) The Old Year is personified as dying and Death gathers lost things. ### [V: The Widow of Nain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/v-the-widow-of-nain) Personified as turning backward to the sun, defeated by Jesus' command. ### [Songs of the Days and Nights](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/songs-of-the-days-and-nights) Personified as triumphant over decay and as a presence in autumn and winter imagery. ### [Songs of the Autumn Days](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/songs-of-the-autumn-days) Death is portrayed as triumphant, leading the ripened home and pervading the autumn landscape. ### [Autumn Song](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/autumn-song) Death is portrayed as an old adversary left behind when a man passes through Death's door. ### [The Dead Hand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-dead-hand) The dead man whose hand closes around the witch lady, embodying the inescapable grip of death. ### [The Diary of an Old Soul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-diary-of-an-old-soul) Mentioned as a levelling force that lifts all, and as a contrast to life in bondage. ### [January](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/january) Personified as a visitor who knocks at the door, prompting fear and a prayer for God to accompany the speaker through the final passage. ### [April](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/april) Mentioned as conquered by Love, and as something the speaker no longer fears. ### [July](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/july) Referenced as 'Death's conqueror' in the context of riding with Christ and the slow progress of deliverance. ### [September](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/september) Described as haunting the soul with dissolution and unrest. ### [October](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/october) Personified as grim Death who takes the speaker by the throat, but the speaker trusts God's deliverance. ### [A Threefold Cord](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-threefold-cord) Personified as a force that cannot reach the soul hidden in Jesus, and contemplated in the poem 'Sleep' as a foretaste of death. ### [The Haunted House](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-haunted-house) Referenced through imagery of the dead, the skeleton, and the funeral pall. ### [From Home](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/from-home) Referenced indirectly through 'the last cold pressure' and 'the heel is stamped upon the outmost layer,' symbolizing death's finality. ### [November, 1851](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/november-1851) The inevitable dissolution and the 'mournful wail' calling the soul. ### [Of One Who Died in Spring](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/of-one-who-died-in-spring) Implied as the force that, through spring's softness, sends the loved one home. ### [A Noonday Melody](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-noonday-melody) Implied as the final rest the speaker considers. ### [Sleep](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/sleep) Referenced as the possible visitor in sleep, giving a foretaste of the whole of death. ### [New Year’s Eve: A Waking Dream](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/new-year-s-eve-a-waking-dream) Death is present in the imagery of the churchyard, graves, and the mother's burial. ### [Death: Mourn Not, My Friends, That We Are Growing Old](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/death-mourn-not-my-friends-that-we-are-growing-old) Reimagined as a comforting figure, not a grim end; the speaker rejects a 'caitiff creed' of fear. ### [A Song-Sermon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-song-sermon) Personified as a gaoler who keeps the speaker in the grave. ### [Awake!](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/awake) Death is personified as a sleepy tavern where the sleeper has been carousing. ### [Evil Influence](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/evil-influence) Personified as a force likened to subtle sins and quiet seeds of destruction. ### [Death: Yes, There Is One Who Makes Us All Lay Down](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/death-yes-there-is-one-who-makes-us-all-lay-down) The central figure of the chapter, described as the one who makes all lay down their vanities and stops all human activity. ### [For Where Your Treasure Is, There Will Your Heart Be Also](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/for-where-your-treasure-is-there-will-your-heart-be-also) Death is implied as the miser's life candle burns dim and he creeps out of his body. ### [The Asthmatic Man to the Satan That Binds Him](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-asthmatic-man-to-the-satan-that-binds-him) Christ's angel who will come with a cold breath to scare Satan away and give the man fresh air. ### [General Gordon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/general-gordon) Personified as one wing of Gordon's ascent to heaven. ### [A Song for Christmas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-song-for-christmas) Death is depicted as a sexton tolling the bell over ill-ploughed furrows, symbolizing mortality and burial. ### [To My Aging Friends](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/to-my-aging-friends) Implied as the 'Dead' waiting and approaching the living: 'We, waiting Dead, will warm our bones... We are coming fast to you!' ### [Rondel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/rondel) Implied as the destination of the funeral train, the welcoming grave. ### [Going to Sleep](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/going-to-sleep) Implied as the stair and tomb through which the elder brother passes, transforming death into a passage to home. ### [Foolish Children](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/foolish-children) Referenced as conquered by Christ, yet feared by the foolish children who weep at the grave. ### [To Gordon, Leaving Khartoum](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/to-gordon-leaving-khartoum) Implied as the 'stormy release' and the state of lying 'still as a child' after the fatal shot. ### [A Mammon-Marriage](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-mammon-marriage) The destination of the ghastly ride, 'Death's salt shore'. ### [A Dead House](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/a-dead-house) Appears in the final stanza as the sole companion of a soul that is empty of love. ### [Master and Boy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/master-and-boy) Old Time sits on a grave-stone, personifying the passage of time and mortality. ### [De Profundis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/de-profundis) Personified as an adversary; the speaker struggles with 'hourly strife with death' and longs to break free from the 'coffin strait and dark.' ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/characters/death - Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se - All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_8_se/characters