First Stanza 1. What image in the words “burn and rave” suggest? Why should someone “burn and rave at close of day?”
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?
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?
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?
6. What imagery do you see in this stanza?
Fourth Stanza
7. How might these people have “sang the sun in flight” and then “grieved” it?
8. What imagery do you see in this stanza?
Fifth Stanza
9. What images do you see in stanza 5?
Sixth Stanza
10. Why do all these men not go gently into death?
11. What role do light and darkness play in the poem?