Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

In the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" either the title line, "rage, rage against the dying of the light" or both are repeated in each stanza to give the poem a new meaning. In the first stanza the writer is saying that in their last days someone isn't wanting to leave this earth. In the second stanza the author tells us that though wise men know their time is up, they too, do not want to die. The author explains in the third stanza that as "good men" near the hour of their death, they feel an undeniable rage at the fact that there is no more time. The "wild men" that the author talks about, who have "caught and sang the sun," are those that were always living life to the fullest of their ability and never slowed down for anything, but now that they're close to the end they've realized that they could have done more with their lives than strictly having fun and they don't want their time to end. These "grave men" the author talks about are probably old and nearly blind, yet they know so much it seems like they know everything. And though they know they're getting close, they too, want to rebel against the thought of dying. The last stanza is a more personal stanza, the author praying futilely that his father will fight death like all the others, even though it would be pointless because a person can only live so long before they finally have to give up.