"And death shall have no dominion" is a poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). The title comes from St. Paul's epistle to the Romans (6:9): "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no dominion over him." The poem portrays death as a guarantee of immortality, drawing on imagery from John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.</poem>
Publication history
In early 1933, Thomas befriended Bert Trick, a grocer who worked in the Uplands area of Swansea. Trick was an amateur poet who had several poems published in local papers. In spring 1933, Trick suggested the two men both write a poem on the subject of 'immortality'. Trick's poem, which was published in a newspaper the following year, contained the refrain "For death is not the end." In 1933, in a notebook marked 'April', Thomas wrote the poem "And death shall have no dominion". Trick persuaded him to seek a publisher and in May of that year it was printed in New English Weekly.