Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
"Do not go gentle into that good night", a villanelle, is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). Originally published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, it also appeared as part of the collection "In Country Sleep." Written for his dying father, it is one of Thomas's most popular and accessible poems.
The poem has no title other than its first line, "Do not go gentle into that good night", a line which appears as a refrain throughout the poem. The poem's other equally famous refrain is "Rage, rage against the dying of the light".
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Famous quotes containing the words gentle and/or night:
“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 (1914–1953)
“While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
The only son is dead.
But the mother needs to be better,
She with thin form presently drest in black,
By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and
withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)