‘Nil desperandum’ for John, my Walton Meteor !
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.Reading Dylan Thomas for A Level and never encountered before except for Richard Burton”s Under Milk Wood which my dad adored.
What monumental rage! Like King Kong when he is on Broadway and looking for his girl throwing away all the fake blonde pretenders to his soulmate…
Find the poem very gritty and distinctly awkward. Muscular poetry I suppose and passionate grief which knocks me over.
I don’t necessarily want this to be the death of anyone I love as it is so resistant to leaving life,to letting go. It lacks peace. Yet its lack of peace yields up its grandeur too. For it is passionately attached to life. It affirms our uniqueness and our intimacies. It communicates ‘don’t leave me’ over and over again. Bravely, loudly and vulnerably.
Relentless tenderness that burns…
Not a lukewarm writer in any way and intensely captures the flattening, abject rage of watching someone you love leave you too ****** soon.
Makes you think about your emotional contribution to this planet!
Mesmerising.
