First Stanza
1. What image in the words “burn and rave” suggest? Why should someone “burn and rave at close of day?”
Author tries to deliver the idea that life is priceless and worth fighting for and getting old is a disease that has to be cured.
2. The word rage can mean “anger,” but it can also mean “passion”—an outpouring of feeling. How might Thomas have been using both meanings in the poem?
He hates something with the passion.
Second Stanza
3. Though the wise men might “know” that it is time to die, the speaker says that they still fight death because “their words had forked no lightning.” What does this mean?
This means that even though they know that they're eventually going to die, they don't want to until they have done something that's impacted the world in a big way, causing them to fight against death.
4. What images do you see in this stanza?
Third Stanza
5. These good people cry “how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay.” What does this mean?
If the world had been perfect they might have mattered more
6. What imagery do you see in this stanza?
Danced in a green bay
Fourth Stanza
7. How might these people have “sang the sun in flight” and then “grieved” it?
celebrated things without knowing what they truly were, not appreciated things while they had them (like youth)
“grieved it" - were sad when things ended that they weren't ready to let go.
8. What imagery do you see in this stanza?
wild men, caught, sang, sun in flight, grieved it on its way
Fifth Stanza
9. What images do you see in stanza 5?
grave men - used two ways: serious, and near death.
blinding sight
blaze like meteors
Sixth Stanza
10. Why do all these men not go gently into death?
They are sad to leave their loved ones behind
11. What role do light and darkness play in the poem?
they represent life and death. dying of the light = dying of the man