Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
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Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, a villanelle composed in 1951, is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953). Originally published in 1952, as part of the collection "In Country Sleep," it is one of his most-quoted works.
Another Welshman, John Cale, set the poem to music in 1989 and performed it at a concert held to celebrate the opening of the National Assembly for Wales.
The final line was also borrowed for the title of the 2001 film, Against the Dying of the Light, which commemorated the work of the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales. The archive houses several rare recordings of Dylan Thomas himself, including his own reading of this very poem.
- 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.
External link
- BBC page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/dylanthomas/bibliography/pages/do_not_go_gentle.shtml)