i have to write a literary device on a poem with a paradox. it has to be a.p. level, and the paradox has to corelate with the theme. Help!

Some say there is a paradox here. What do you think?

Holy Sonnet X
by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Les

its supposed to be a few words that in them selves are a paradox. like i burn i freeze etc. then we have to discuss how the one little paradox relates to the theme of the poem as a whole.

Some of the little poems by the Danish philosopher Piet Hein, which he called 'Grooks', are written around paradoxes. For instance

Grook to warn the universe against megalomania

The universe may
be as great as they say.
But it wouldn't be missed
if it didn't exist.

and

Good Advice

Shun advice
at any price -
that's what I call
good advice.

and

Constitutional Point

Power corrupts,
whereas sound opposition
builds up our free
democratic tradition.
One thing would make
democracy flower:
having a strong opposition -
in power.

Virtually anything by Blake, I would think:

[www.english.uga.edu] />
Shelley:

Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

An echo by Francis Thompson:

[bartelby.com]

She left me marvelling why my soul
Was sad that she was glad;
At all the sadness in the sweet,
The sweetness in the sad.

W S Merwin:

I come back to where I have never been ...

It was never there and already it's vanishing ...

Wordsworth's Westminster Bridge:

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Your part of the assignment - explain why Wordsworth's is an example of paradox.

Is this one by Frost an example?

[www.cs.rice.edu]

Stephen Dunn has written many poems with a paradox.

Look at this incredible portrayal below; it is full of sensitivity that comes out of the paradox of life.

"What Goes On" (from DIFFERENT HOURS)

After the affair and the moving out,
after the destructive revivfying passion,
we watched her life quiet

into a new one, her lover more and more
on its periphery. She spent nights
alone, happy for the narcosis

of the television. When she got cancer
she kept it to herself until she couldn't
keep it from anyone. The chemo debilitated
and saved her, and one day

her husband asked her to come back---
his wife, who after all had only fallen
in love as anyone might
who hadn't been in love in a while---

and he held her, so different now,
so thin, her hair just partially
grown back. He held her like a new woman

and what she felt
felt almost as good as love had,
and each of them called it love
because precision didn't matter anymore.

And we who'd been a part of it,
often rejoicing with one
and consoling the other,

we who had seen her truly alive
and then merely alive,
what could we do but revise
our phone book, our hearts,

offer a little toast to what goes on.

"best men" and "desperate men" can be a paradox.persinification is seen clearly here but the paradox is hard to find.

as if Donne is challancing the death,wants Death to die,and even if some one dies,he calls it "wake eternally" how a death person can wake?That can be the paradox..maybe...