how do i analyze/explain the first and the last stanza?

Question

""How the columns of the body

Corrode and collapse,

Despite girdings of cotton and silk,

Or buttresses of expensive ointments.""

How Death camps out in the body

To seize it by surprise.

How it charges, then, through veins

And arteries, or along nerves and muscle,

Discharging tissue and organs,

So that the heart calcifies to bone.

""The issue is to sing until breath is gone.

Flagging, I hurl these words

To shout down Time

Just as it becomes Eternity.""

Please explain the first and the last stanza specifically.

Answer 1

In the first stanza, notice the columns of the body - the physical body - collapses in spite of expensive clothes and ointments. Even the rich and well-to-do cannot stave off death. In the last stanza, the speaker seems to surrender - flagging (the white flag) and decides to live by singing and celebrating life until the body gives out with time, perhaps creating an eternity based on HOW we live life. Life after death.