*Apr 18, 2026 | Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
Original topic subject: April 18, 2026- Dylan Thomas
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1hamlet61
Do not go gentle into that good night
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 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.
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 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.
2DebiCates
>1 hamlet61: A classic! How strange I never noticed it was a villanelle before, possibly the most famous villanelle ever. His poems, it seems to me, have a primal vitality, a shouting, wildman vitality, even.
This poem makes a contrast to Mary Oliver poem, "When Death Comes," posted just a few days ago for the National Poetry Month prompt "Decline" by @DAGray08 here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/383623#9177789
Written in 1947, Thomas would have been 33. Whereas Oliver's poem, first published in 1992, she was 57. I think that matters, that extra almost 25 years of perspective. Thomas' poem is about his father's death, whereas Oliver is pondering her own; again that would matter for perspective.
At almost 67, I'm not keen to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." I'm simply too tired.
This poem makes a contrast to Mary Oliver poem, "When Death Comes," posted just a few days ago for the National Poetry Month prompt "Decline" by @DAGray08 here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/383623#9177789
Written in 1947, Thomas would have been 33. Whereas Oliver's poem, first published in 1992, she was 57. I think that matters, that extra almost 25 years of perspective. Thomas' poem is about his father's death, whereas Oliver is pondering her own; again that would matter for perspective.
At almost 67, I'm not keen to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." I'm simply too tired.
3DebiCates
Thomas died at age 39, drank himself to death. He didn't live long enough to experience a possible different perspective about death--he wasn't old enough even to need readers or to know he had knees! Yet, ironically, it was if he was running his whole adult life headlong exactly toward the dying light.
ETA: sorry I was wrong about the precise cause of his death. Wikipedida says "It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia, emphysema and asthma." I think you could say he neglected his health by living recklessly and that ceaseless expression of vitality.
ETA: sorry I was wrong about the precise cause of his death. Wikipedida says "It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia, emphysema and asthma." I think you could say he neglected his health by living recklessly and that ceaseless expression of vitality.
4hamlet61
Yes. I'll be 65 in October so I get what you mean!.
I like his u0se of words in a way in which they can be ignored to focus on rhythm.
I discovered this one in college.
I like his u0se of words in a way in which they can be ignored to focus on rhythm.
I discovered this one in college.
5DebiCates
This might be the saddest poem I've ever read. From https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/tributes/james-laughlin-publisher-poet
Dylan
by James Laughlin (1914-1997)
One of us had to make the official identification of Dylan’s body
at the Medical Examiner’s Morgue
Brinnin and I tossed a coin and I lost
It was a crummy building in the hospital complex on First Avenue
and the basement, smelling of formaldehyde, was a confusion
of trolleys with rubber sheets covering bodies
A little old man in a rubber apron was in charge
He put on his glasses to read the name I had written on a slip
of paper and looked around, trying to remember
He lifted on sheet. “Is this him?” It wasn’t
Two or three more who weren’t “old Messy” of the pubs of SoHo
and Chelsea
Finally we found him and he looked awful, all bloated
“Insult to the brain” was what it said on the autopsy report, too
much booze for too many years
The old man sent me to a window to confirm the identification
where there was a little girl about five feet high, struggling with
the forms, using a pencil stub
She got me to write “Dylan” for her on the form because she had
never heard of such a name and couldn’t spell it
“What was his profession?” she asked
I told her her was a poet; she looked perplexed
“What’s a poet?” she asked
I told her a poet was a person who wrote poems
She put that down, and that’s what it says on the form:
Dylan Thomas—a poet (he wrote poems).
P.S. I'm sorry the indentation isn't correct here. It's a thing that would take a lot of trouble to fix in a message. You can see it correctly, though, at the link above. Scroll down in the article.
Dylan
by James Laughlin (1914-1997)
One of us had to make the official identification of Dylan’s body
at the Medical Examiner’s Morgue
Brinnin and I tossed a coin and I lost
It was a crummy building in the hospital complex on First Avenue
and the basement, smelling of formaldehyde, was a confusion
of trolleys with rubber sheets covering bodies
A little old man in a rubber apron was in charge
He put on his glasses to read the name I had written on a slip
of paper and looked around, trying to remember
He lifted on sheet. “Is this him?” It wasn’t
Two or three more who weren’t “old Messy” of the pubs of SoHo
and Chelsea
Finally we found him and he looked awful, all bloated
“Insult to the brain” was what it said on the autopsy report, too
much booze for too many years
The old man sent me to a window to confirm the identification
where there was a little girl about five feet high, struggling with
the forms, using a pencil stub
She got me to write “Dylan” for her on the form because she had
never heard of such a name and couldn’t spell it
“What was his profession?” she asked
I told her her was a poet; she looked perplexed
“What’s a poet?” she asked
I told her a poet was a person who wrote poems
She put that down, and that’s what it says on the form:
Dylan Thomas—a poet (he wrote poems).
P.S. I'm sorry the indentation isn't correct here. It's a thing that would take a lot of trouble to fix in a message. You can see it correctly, though, at the link above. Scroll down in the article.
6SandraArdnas
>3 DebiCates: I always read that poem as having an additional overtone of non-conformity and living on your own terms. So perhaps he wouldn’t have chosen another way even with the wisdom of past experience. Who knows?
Either way, I always find it electrifying and infusing me with a sense of strangely unidentifiable sense of purpose, more like Alan Watts 'the meaning of life is to live', whatever that means at any given moment.
Either way, I always find it electrifying and infusing me with a sense of strangely unidentifiable sense of purpose, more like Alan Watts 'the meaning of life is to live', whatever that means at any given moment.
7elenchus
In some synchronicity, I recently watched Christopher Nolan's Interstellar which features this poem. I believe several films do, I think of this one simply because I'd seen it so recently.
8DAGray08
I'm intrigued reading this years later, how poorly we read it it school. There are aspects of a villanelle that were never talked about -- lingering just on the two iconic lines and the defiant act toward death and of losing one's father. But villanelles at their best have a movement in the middle lines that gives the repeated lines meaning. (Kind of like Bishop's One Art in which the middle lines show an increasing desperation - that one can hear when it's read aloud - that undercuts the 'art of losing isn't hard' rhetoric) In this case it is almost as if Death were the judge and the speaker were angrily making the case for continued life, the 'wise' having not reached as many as they could yet, the 'good' whose deeds didn't make enough of a difference yet, the 'wild' who lived so much in the present they didn't realize they were grieving too much, and the 'grave' who can't see but still have something burning inside. The Imperatives -- 'do not go' and 'Rage' are the exclamation points on the advocate's case but the middle lines are the meat of the case that is lost in all the pyrotechnics.
9DebiCates
I appreciate the varying comments here. This will not be a personal favorite poem of mine (it wasn't when I read it in school, either), but I can appreciate hearing from others >6 SandraArdnas: >8 DAGray08:, and to recognize that it has power and staying power, neither of which is no small thing.
A few months back I read “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” and was wildly in love with it, still am. I can now see some of the same themes in both. https://poets.org/poem/force-through-green-fuse-drives-flower
And thank you Matt @hamlet61 for bringing this one back into our lives, aged oh just a few years since we first encountered it.
A few months back I read “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” and was wildly in love with it, still am. I can now see some of the same themes in both. https://poets.org/poem/force-through-green-fuse-drives-flower
And thank you Matt @hamlet61 for bringing this one back into our lives, aged oh just a few years since we first encountered it.
