Poetry can be written from many different perspectives, and these can change throughout the course of a poet’s lifetime. In each of the following poems, the authors are writing from the perspective of someone looking back over their lives, or the life of another, and the amount of remorse they have for the way they chose to live: “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith. This essay will explore how each of these poems addresses the theme of self-examination at the end of life, and reflections on the way the author or subject chose to live their lives.
Dylan Thomas’s famous lyric poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” contains his advice on how to confront death at the end of one’s life. He argues that “old age should burn and rave at close of day,” or that one should hold onto life with ferocity and refuse to give into death. In this quote and throughout the poem, he uses bright imagery to symbolize life, which stands in contrast to the image of night and darkness as an allegory for death, or “the dying of the light.” While the poem initially seems to be addressed directly to the reader, in the final stanza Thomas reveals that it is his father, “there on the sad height,” that he is trying to convince to not “go gentle into that good night.”
Although these final lines illustrate the poem’s very personal significance, the lines still serve as a message to all of humanity. Regardless of how one lived their life, what regrets they may have, or what lessons they fear they learned “too late,” Thomas advises the listener to embrace one’s life and not part with it lightly. Not only to his father, but to all men—wise, good, wild or grave—he gives the same instructions: “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” In a sense, he is encouraging people not to dwell on their lives as they approach death, but the mere fact that they continue possess life, and to make the most of it while they can.
“What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” is a sonnet written by Edna St. Vincent Millay in which the narrator reflects on her past loves and the passion that she felt when she was younger. In this poem, she is haunted by “ghosts” which represent these memories, “that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply.” She experiences “a quiet pain” for her lovers, who she cannot remember by name, but also for the fact that they “not again / Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.” She creates a contrast between the “summer [that] sang in me,” and “winter [in which] stands the lonely tree.” Summer is used here poetically to represent her youth, and winter, her old age.
While “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith does not fall into any particular category of poetry, it is a narrative that consists of three four-line stanzas. It is a rhyming poem in which the author describes a man who drowned at sea, whose calls for helps were not heard by onlookers. “Poor chap,” the poem laments, “he always loved larking / And now he’s dead.” This particular line seems to make light of the drowned man’s tragedy, as if there was nothing anyone could do to stop his death, and no one to mourn it. But in lines at the beginning and the end of the poem, the voice changes from third person to first person and we discover that this man is symbolic of Smith’s own life and she identifies herself as the one who was “not waving but drowning.”
The man in the poem is someone who the narrator and onlookers know, but for whatever reason, when they see him in the water they believe he is there by choice. “It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,” was the explanation they gave for his death (Smith, n.p.). But by inserting herself into the poem, Smith provides the perspective of someone who finds themselves in the same cold, deep waters. These waters seem to be a metaphor for emotional pain, and the author regrets that she spent her life “much too far out” in in a place where she was struggling but unable to call out for help in a way that was recognizable as such to those who knew her. By telling the reader the story of the man, and of herself, she seems to be offering a precautionary tale not to mask one’s feelings, but to reach out to others before it is too late.
In each of these poems, the author takes different perspectives when reflecting on life in old age. Thomas pleads with his father as he lies on his deathbed, Millay reminisces on loves past and the passion that once lived in her, and Smith looks back on a life in which she was never able to effectively express her true feelings to those around her. Each poem is very personal to the author and uses strong imagery to illustrate their narrative. Individually and together, they offer a wide range of advice for approaching the end of one’s life and living it to the fullest, free of regrets.
Works Cited
Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “What Lips My Lips have Kissed and Where and Why.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. Accessed 10 January 2016.
Smith, Stevie. “Not Waving But Drowning.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. Accessed 10 January 2016.
Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. Accessed 10 January 2016.
