Do Not Go Entle Poem by gershon hepner

Do not go gentle into that lost love,
old love should burn and rave when love concludes,
and not declare “Ich hab’ genug. Enough.”

Though wise men ought to know that love deludes,
when they grow old they tend to huff and puff,
expecting victory from vicissitudes.

Good men have danced, and jumped off from a bluff,
pushed off from heights, love’s highest altitudes,
unwilling to acknowledge a rebuff.

Grave men, unloved, are forced to change their mood,
rejecting the indifference that rides rough
when paths of love aren’t smooth, and brood,

remembering the time when they were wooed,
but raging at lost love are forced to slough
their thin skin when the time comes to conclude
relationships like old flames that we snuff.

Inspired by Dylan Thomas’s most famous poem:
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave 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.


5/28/08