How we cite our quotes: (line)
Quote #4
Yet call not this long life ; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal ; can ghosts die ? (lines 9-10)
As if all the contradictions in time weren't confusing enough, the speaker flips reality on its head again in the poem's final couplet. He claims that he has been dead ever since they were separated. According to the Christian tradition to which Donne belongs, souls are immortal. "Ghosts," on the other hand, are not an explicitly Christian image.