Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

This is my favourite poem by Dylan Thomas. I think of it often, whenever I am faced with losing someone dear.

The history of the poem (as I remember it) is that Dylan Thomas was angry at his father for dying so complacently. He felt like it was giving up on life, and he wanted his father to have fought it bravely instead right to the very last instant. He wanted his father to "rage against the dying of the light" like an angry beast, or a soldier in the heat of battle.

After reading this poem, I was quite taken with it. The idea of fighting valiantly against Death appealed to me.

My friend's mother is quite ill right now and we fear the worst. Please keep her in your prayers.

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