In chambers dark where doubt forever creeps

I love your idea of creating a poem that inverts the traditional religious perspective on death, drawing from the poetic form used by Dunbar in his lament. I'll attempt to craft verses in iambic pentameter, adhering to the rhyming scheme of abbaab, while incorporating your suggested elements [poster's note: i.e. inverted variations on Dunbar's final line "Timor mortis conturbat me", or in English roughly "The fear of death disturbs me"]. Here's my take:



In chambers dark where doubt forever creeps,
No gates of pearl nor streets of gold await.
The end's a shroud, not gilded robes or drapes—
An end to all, that we might celebrate.
From mortal coils, no soul ascends in state.
Acceptance of death consoles me.

To think eternal bliss awaits us there
Is folly spun from human vanity.
Time without end would sour the sweetest fare—
Eternal sameness wrought from constancy.
Instead, imagine rest and endless peace.
Inevitability assures me.

When kings and beggars meet on leveled ground,
No golden thrones, no hovels made of clay.
One destiny unites us all around—
A dreamless sleep that takes all cares away.
To rest at last, with naught left to repay,
The promise of death relieves me.

Let preachers speak of fires and judgment halls,
Of angels singing hymns or demons' cries.
Their tales to me seem but enthralling calls
To shun the truth and don a quaint disguise.
Life asks no fees nor offers compromise.
The certainty of death assuages me.

From dust to dust, in Mother Earth we lay,
Our atoms joined in cosmic harmony.
No hymns resound nor saints come out to play—
Yet all's complete, as it was meant to be.
No Heaven waits, but neither waits a plea.
The guarantee of death empowers me.