"Do not go gentle into that good night"

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.

by Dylan Thomas

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After last week’s light and lovely “Dragonflies”, I thought I just might turn to something dark this week. This well known poem by Dylan Thomas is both widely read and loved, and it also happens to be one of my favourite poems too. If this is your first time reading it, I hope you will enjoy this short, little introduction of mine.

Reading this poem, one can’t help but be swept by the angry, impassioned voice, crying out against life ebbing away at death’s knell. Even without observing the poem’s craft, one can really feel the poem’s power in the deep sorrow and anguish it evokes, as the speaker kneels beside the deathbed of his father. This effect is created not only through the words, but the form of the poem itself and the rhythm it creates.

Dylan Thomas wrote this poem as a villanelle, whose roots are in Italian pastorals. It consists of five tercets (stanzas with thee lines) rhyming aba, with the first line and last line of the first tercet alternating as the last lines of the subsequent tercets, until a final quatrain where they form the concluding couplet. The alternation and repetition of lines, together with the strict rhyme scheme, and largely iambic rhythm give it a strong incantory feel that becomes both mournful and soulful.

The poem begins with a plea against giving in to the night, a metaphor used here for death. The first line strikingly carries the double negative of “Do not” and the bitter irony of going ‘gently’ to one’s “good” end. The alliterative ‘g’ adds to that insistence and forlorn desperation of the speaker, that death will not easily claim the life before him. The speaker doesn’t want death to be the end and feels it should be battled against with all one’s might and will, even in old age. This first stanza then ends with these unforgettable wrenching lines:

Rage, rage / against / the dy- /-ing of / the light

(Bold for stressed syllable, conversely light or unstressed for unboldened)

The trochaic double stress at the beginning “Rage, rage…” drives with the all the passion and anger against the fading light of life.

The overlapping and contrasting metaphors of day/night, light/dark, life/death in this first part here is then extended beautifully throughout the rest of the poem, without a hint or sense of artificiality or forcedness: lightning/dark sky (2nd tercet), sunlight (3rd), sun/night (4th), meteor/night sky; blindness/sight (5th).

From wise men who recognise the inevitability of death, to good men whose good works are diminished by it, to wild men who rave madly against the sun's setting, to grave (double meaning here) men who through their fading vision ‘see’, death comes to all with all its cruelty and finality. At this end, the speaker then breaks out, begging in a tortured cry for any shred of comfort, any bit of consolation or solace from his father in those brief short breaths before the imminent and irrevocable passing of life to death.

Such a haunting poem…

Although the poem is ostensibly about physical death, it easily moves beyond its literal sense, to metaphorical ‘death’ or ‘loss of vision’that one goes through and experience. It becomes deeply moving or personal for the individual reader, and here lies the power of this poem, or any great poetry at all, for that matter.

What do you like about this poem?