Do not go gentle into that good night Do not go gentle into that good night "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
Do not go gentle into that good night 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". The poem currently remains under copyright, although the text is available online. 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