XCI explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Death and Immortality

  Death is portrayed as the ultimate fulfillment and a secret lover, with life's joys and pains borne in anticipation of this final union.

• Surrender and Egolessness

  The poet offers all that he is, has, and hopes to death, symbolizing complete surrender and readiness for egoless union.

Characters to notice

• The Poet

  The speaker who has kept watch for death and prepared for the final union.

• The Divine

  Addressed as 'Death' and the 'last fulfilment of life,' the divine presence is the ultimate beloved.

Key passages

• “O thou the last fulfilment of life, Death, my death, come and whisper to me!”

  O you who are the ultimate completion of existence, my death, come and speak softly to me.

  The poet personifies death as a divine fulfillment and invites it to communicate intimately.

• “All that I am, that I have, that I hope and all my love have ever flowed towards thee in depth of secrecy.”

  Everything I am, possess, desire, and cherish has always been secretly directed toward you.

  The poet reveals that his entire being and affections have been secretly oriented toward death as the ultimate goal.

• “After the wedding the bride shall leave her home and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night.”

  Following the marriage ceremony, the bride will depart from her family home and unite with her husband in the private darkness of night.

  The poet uses the metaphor of a bride leaving her home after marriage to symbolize the soul's solitary departure to meet the divine in death.