The Dust in "Church Monuments"

I thought that the poem “Church Monuments” was a very interesting read despite its difficult language. In the first stanza, the speaker seems to be praying in a church as his “soul repairs to her devotion.” However, the speaker then starts talking about his “flesh.” He at first says that he “entombs” his flesh, most likely referencing when he dies and his body is buried. The third line provides evidence for the speaker’s attitude towards his flesh. He believes that the flesh will “make an acquaintance with dust.” The mention of dust almost reminds me of Grendel, where the dust signified the passage of time. In the same way, the speaker hints to the flesh’s own passage into dust. The flesh will become dust with the “blast of death’s incessant motion.” It almost seems as if the speaker regards death as a negative and destructive force. Still, he realizes that everyone must feel death’s “motion.”

In the second stanza, the speaker says that he “gladly trusts [his] body to this school.” I think that the “school” refers to the earth of the graveyard. When he says to “find his birth written in dusty heraldry and lines,” the dusty heraldry and lines refers to the tombstones that discuss the details of the body. Still, the tombstones will eventually disintegrate into dust just as the body does. As the body knows dust will become dust, the “jet and marble put up for signs” are almost comical because they hint at permanence that isn’t there. The speaker then asks the sole question in the entire poem—“What shall point out them,/ When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat/ To kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust?” I am actually not sure about the significance of the question, but it might be mocking people that “kiss the heaps of dust.” In other words, those that revere the dead do not know that the body has simply turned to dust just as everything does.

Finally, in the fourth stanza, the speaker gives advice to his body. He first warns against when the body should get “wanton in cravings.” He says that “flesh is but the glass, which holds the dust/ That measures all our time; which also shall/ Be crumbled into dust.” In other words, flesh shouldn’t gain so much pride because it is the only holder of dust. Flesh holds the spirit and soul “that measures all time”. However, just as flesh becomes dust, the spirit and soul also become dust. Despite the flesh’s subservience to the soul, both entities become dust. Finally, the speaker prepares his flesh for the impending death. He says that the ashes are “tame and free from lust.” In the same way, flesh should calmly and freely accept death.

For me, this poem was probably one of the hardest poems we have looked at so far. Many of the lines don’t point to a direct interpretation, but I think that its complex nature is fitting because death and dust are both very complicated subjects.