Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

by DYLAN THOMAS (1914-1953)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

“… He wrote poems because he was born with certain characteristics, among them great verbal ingenuity and a tortured imagination. But students of Thomas, even friendly ones, have nagging doubts concerning the way he set about his craft. There is a feeling that at times he is more interested in proving himself a poet than in getting on with the business of conveying whatever it is that he wants a poem to convey. The desire to display himself to the world as an artist was very real to Thomas…. from Dylan Thomas: The Biography, by Paul Ferris (2000)

Dylan Thomas Contemporaries
Robert Lowell
Pablo Neruda
Robert Hillyer
Ogden Nash