Which British poet wrote 'Do not go gentle into that good night'?

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night.” He composed the poem in 1947 while visiting Florence with his family, and it was first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951.

The poem is a villanelle, a highly structured form built from repeated lines and two recurring rhymes. Its nineteen lines include the refrains “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The speaker urges different kinds of men to resist passivity in the face of death.

The final stanza addresses “my father,” which has encouraged the widespread interpretation that Thomas wrote the poem for his dying father. However, his father did not die until late 1952, after the poem had been written and published. The poem therefore combines personal feeling with a broader meditation on mortality.

A common mix-up is calling Thomas an English poet. He was Welsh, although he wrote in English and spent significant periods outside Wales. The poem’s recurring imagery also explains why it is frequently quoted in films, speeches and discussions about grief and resistance.