do not go gentle into that good night poem

It advocates affirming life up until the last breath, rather than learning to accept death quietly. The poem discusses various ways to approach death in old age. Ironically Dylan Thomas himself died just a year later. Thomas sent the poem to a friend, Princess Caetani, in the spring of 1951, telling her that the “only person I can’t show the little enclosed poem to is, of course, my father who doesn’t know he’s dying.” After his father’s death, the poem was included in the collection In Country Sleep. Thomas was seriously ill however, it was not published until after his death on December 16, 1952. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” was in all likelihood composed in 1945 when D. It had, according to Thomas, everything needed in a library.

His father’s section held the classics, while his included modern poetry. In a 1933 letter to a friend, Dylan Thomas describes the library he shared with his father in their home. A grammar school English teacher, he had a deep love for language and literature which he passed on to his son.

In “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” a moving plea to his dying father, death takes on a new and intensely personal meaning for Thomas.ĭavid John Thomas was an important influence throughout his son Dylan’s life.

What a beautiful voice he had.The first poem that Dylan Thomas ever published, when he was only eighteen, was an early version of “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.” The cycle of life and death formed a constant underlying theme throughout his poetry since that earliest effort. Here is a video of Thomas reading his poem. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightīlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Īnd you, my father, there on the sad height,Ĭurse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,Īnd learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Though wise men at their end know dark is right,īecause their words had forked no lightning they Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Old age should burn and rave at close of day

He drank himself to death just a few years after composing this poem, when he was only 39 years old. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Profound words for a 33-year old to write, and ironic that Thomas himself should never live to see old age. He would be dead himself just 6 years later, at the age of 39.The poem deals with death, or rather the refusal to fade away in old age. Dylan Thomas wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night” in 1947.

Do not go gentle into that good night poem