Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

POETRY FORMAT, 10 Jun 2024

Dylan Thomas | Poets.org – TRANSCEND Media Service

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 the 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.

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From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corp. Used with permission.

Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 Oct 1914 – 9 Nov 1953) was from South Wales, UK. He dropped out of school at sixteen to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post. By Dec 1932, he left this job to concentrate on his poetry full-time. It was during his late teens that Thomas wrote more than half of his collected poems. He was not concerned with social and intellectual issues in his poetry, which exhibited intense lyricism and highly charged emotion, thus having more in common with the Romantic tradition.

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