Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

This is a poem that Dylan Thomas wrote for his dying father, urging him to put up a fight.

It seems like an apt message to America and Europe of today as the countries fight against oppressing unemployment, mounting debt, global competition, and an overall lack of optimism in its middle class. In fact, anxiety and concern are running high amongst their thinkers (myself included) on how to climb out of the hole.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage 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.

Dylan Thomas reads it beautifully here: