Do not go gentle into that good night - Dylan Thomas

[YesNo]

I think maybe 'wise men' may refer to people who try and shape public opinion in some way to make the world a better place. They may be politicians, civil service mandarins, campaigners, philosophers, or maybe people not quite so grand such as clergymen, teachers, or even bar-stool philosophers down the pub. Although they may have had some successes, they are inevitably disappointed that they cannot change the world as much as they would like. Now as their powers begin to fail, they know they never will. This is sort of the opposite to the next verse in which good men are upset that they cannot continue to do their good works. I imagine these are people who work hard to provide for their family or help their community.

That makes sense. Each of these different groups has a reason to resist death mainly because they feel they have something left to do. Thomas expressed that well.

[YesNo]

Actually, Bishop's meter is stricter than Thomas's. Thomas does away with accentual patterns and is in plain pentamter. Bishop's meter is much more regular with some occasional substitutions. Also, except for the pararhyme (where all the consonants match and the central vowel sound changes) of "fluster" and "gesture," everything else is classically rhymed. Her substitutions all seem motivated by enhancing content through form as well. The first stanza is a good example:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

The first two lines are in perfect iambic pentameter (the feminine ending of "master" excluded), so that when the third line comes there is quite an affective shift with the two opening anapests: "to be LOST that their LOSS..." notice how by using the anapest there is additional emphasis on "lost" and "loss," which signifies those words as key themes of the poem. She does the same thing in the opening of the last stanza: "Even LOSing YOU" where we place extra stress on the "lose" part of "loosing" so it makes more impact when paired with "you".

The version I originally linked to missed the first stanza. I think this one is complete: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/one-art/

I agree that the "fluster" and "gesture" are the only two words that don't fit the rhyme pattern in Bishop's poem. Thomas's rhymes on "night" and "day" are all perfect though monosyllabic.

The sound of Thomas's poem seems more pleasing to me, but I don't like the message as much as the one Bishop seems to be presenting. These two lines from Thomas's poem sound nice to me:

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay

I put the accents in bold which show this is not strict iambic pentameter as you pointed out. The sound is more pleasing than Bishop's, I suspect, because of the additional internal rhymes on "cry" and "by" and "might" and "bright" and near rhyme on "deeds" and "green".

[MorpheusSandman]

It's true that Bishop doesn't make as much use of internal rhyme, assonance, and consonance as Thomas does, but I find her prosody more satisfying. Thomas's poem has that whole Gerard Manley Hopkins sprung rhythm thing going where there are a lot of densely packed monosyllables that typically take stress as well as long vowels that slows down the reader. While your bolding is a good approximation of the stresses, there are arguments to be made that words like "men," "wave," and "deeds" could also be stressed as well. Likewise, over half of the syllables (11 by my count) use long vowels, and many of those that don't use compound consonants ("last" and "danced" eg) to increase the weight of sound. It's why Thomas's poem reads so heavily, and I suspect why many like it so much, though I've never been a fan of that style. You can compare these techniques for emphasis (dense stresses, long vowels, compount consonants) to Bishop's, where she is more selective regarding the parts where she creates emphasis and is more subtle in doing it (the shift to anapests, eg).

[kev67]

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.

The "they" in the second line had two functions--to stick to the form and to be one of the subjects (the other one is "you") of the last sentence.

This is about ageing (end) wise men who accept death (dark) as the unavoidable (right) eventuality of old age, but they refuse to go because their knowledge (words) has not yet affected, destroyed, or turned over (forked) the (loud, bright) hegemonic power/force (lightning), which can be about prevailing philosophies, current beliefs, dominant ideologies, conventional opinions.

Agree, I think.

Regarding the 'they', I listened to the poem being recited on YouTube. There seems to be a semicolon before 'they'. So the last phrase is, "They do not go gentle into that good night". So wise men do not give up even if they never achieve what they set out to.

[Paulclem]

I like the execution of Thomas' poem - though I think Anthony Hopkins reads it too softly - not enough force. The whole aspect of it - the real relationship to his dying father and the emotional force within it - make it a good poem. On the other hand, I would disagree with the spirit of it in the sense of the futility of fighting the inevitable in an attempt to keep alive keep some sort of spiritual flame. I think anyone taking this approach to their own death - or anyone else's - is mistaken when a peaceful inevitability is possible.

having said that, it refects Thomas' own powerful grief, and it is a great confrontation with death.

[BarakiEl]

MANICHAEAN : But I still cannot understand the bless/curse reference.

I registered just so that I could answer this.

First my background: This person in this story describes me 4 years ago, when I was sitting at my father's death bed. He had given up on life after cancer took my mom a year before. So you can see why this poem means so much to me! I get goosebumps every time I read it.

As for your questions:
I saw someone helped you with the initial question of God being the father here. And as you have found out, no. This is a poem about a young man sitting by his father's death bed. And he is exalting, inspiring, empoweing and pleading with his dying father all the things above, about Raging. He wants him to be like the blind, who rage and do not give up.
And I can imagine 2 scenarios: 1. The father is in a coma and can't respond. And 2. I imagine the father is alive, despondent, believing death is imminent, he is accepting and wishes to go, since there is nothing left to live for. He is tired and wants to sleep. His words would be "Leave me be. I am content to die."

"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."

You, my father, there on the sad height (hospital bed) [height can also mean he's on a dangerous height and about to go over, into the precipice, but let's ignore that for now]
(I look up to you from my low stool)

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
(Curse me, if that it what you want to do! [Perhaps they have had some spats in the past and wills his father to summon that fervor, that anger: Tell me you hate that I bought that car, tell me I'm an idiot poet and should have become a doctor instead...] Anything to hear your voice.)

And bless me, if you'd rather do that.

But whatever you do, do it fervently with tears in your eyes!
(For that will show me that you are ALIVE and still want to be alive.)

I beg you

To summon the poem up: "I love you, Dad. Please don't go. Fight and stay a little longer. Remember the sunset at close of day, the lightning, the green bay, the sun in flight, live to see blazing meteors. Remember that others have fought to stay. You can do it too. Fight. Rage. Rage!"

I realize there is a lot more to this epic poem than the nonsense I just spouted. But I wanted to give a view from the son's perspective.
This is an extremely powerful poem, that should move anyone who has sat at a death bed.