Dylan Thomas – Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night lyrics

Dylan Thomas – Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night lyrics

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.

Lyrics taken from /lyrics/d/dylan_thomas/do_not_go_gentle_into_that_good_night.html

Submitted by MikssConan

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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night meanings

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MikssConan 2018-09-08 09:03:05

A poem Dylan Thomas dedicated to his father, David John Thomas, a militant man who had been strong in his youth, but who weakened with age and by his eighties had become blind. The poem urges the older man not to give up and yield to the final “night” of death. It is one of the most famous villanelles in the English language.
The rigid form–two end rhymes, a pattern of repeating lines and five three-line stanzas with a four-line stanza at the end–suggests the poet’s attempts to control his passionate emotions. It was first published in 1951, two years before the poet’s own death at age 39.
An interesting comparison is Owen Sheers, another Welsh poet, who praised his grandmother for the opposite — her peaceful acceptance of death — in his poem On Going.
The poem has been widely quoted and adapted in other media. The composer Igor Stravinsky based a piece called In Memoriam Dylan Thomas on its text; John Cale (one of the members of the Velvet Underground, and like Thomas a Welshman) adapted it into a song on a 1989 album. It is also central to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014). Dr. Brand (portrayed by Michael Caine) motivates explorers searching for a new habitable planet with the poem, turning Thomas’s song to his father into a fight song for humanity as it faces extinction. The poem is quoted in Matched, a young adult dystopia by Ally Condie….and so on.

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+ 13
MikssConan 2018-09-08 08:49:27

FORM: The villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines (tercets) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain) for a total of nineteen lines. It is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains: the first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals (1 and 2) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2.

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MikssConan 2018-09-08 08:46:36

"Do not go gentle into that good night" is a poem in the form of a villanelle, and the most famous work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, it was written in 1947 when Thomas was in Florence with his family. It was published, along with other stories previously written, as part of Thomas' In Country Sleep, And Other Poems of 1952.
It has been suggested that the poem was written for Thomas' dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas 1952. It has no title other than its first line, "Do not go gentle into that good night", a line that appears as a refrain throughout the poem along with its other refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light".

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