Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

This is a poem about the joy and sadness that comes with the flash of burning life

soon blown out with nothing more then a sigh. It focuses on the sadness as those we care

for go far too gently into that good night. Of those who left before their time. As this

poem was written specifically for Thomas's dying father it is even more poignant in the

emotional weight the words convey.

This poem radiates with intensity, in particular, the verse beginning: "wild men

who caught and sang the sun in flight" is simply beautiful poetry. Addressed to the poet's

father as he approaches blindness and death. The relevant aspect of the relationship was

Thomas's profound respect for his father, tall and strong in Thomas's passionate mind but

now tamed by illness and the passing of time. The acceptance of death and a peaceful rest

afterwards are pushed aside in favor of an ungentle rage so blind it almost mirrors the

vigor of childhood frustration at the nature of things we are powerless to change.

Further more, the poem speaks as much of the loss of love and the feelings of one

left behind as of death itself. The meaning of the poem stays shrouded in metaphors like

the references to night as "good". He acknowledged his father stood somewhere he had

not, and perhaps saw what he could not. Thomas was not ready to let go of such an

important part of his life even though his father was facing an irreversible course, and

Thomas's grief was perhaps all the greater. His statement of this love and grief remain

touching. Perhaps the feelings of his fading father should have been more important than

his own rage. These emotion seem to run unchallenged throughout the poem even though

the style beckons structure and discipline within the theme of "night" and "light".

In the tercet's Thomas gives examples of men who meet death differently yet

alike. The first are "wise men," perhaps philosophers. They know