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 theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir 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 sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
The sudden death of Eugene CarmanPut me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month,And I told my wife and children that night.But it didn’t come, and so I thoughtOld Rhodes suspected me of stealingThe blankets I took and sold on the sideFor money to pay a doctor’s bill for my little girl.Then like a bolt old Rhodes accused me,And promised me mercy for my family’s sakeIf I confessed, and so I confessed,And begged him to keep it out of the papers,And I asked the editors, too.That night at home the constable took meAnd every paper, except the Clarion,Wrote me up as a thiefBecause old Rhodes was an advertiser
How does it happen, tell me,That I who was most erudite of lawyers,Who knew Blackstone and CokeAlmost by heart, who made the greatest speechThe court-house ever heard, and wroteA brief that won the praise of Justice BreeseHow does it happen, tell me,That I lie here unmarked, forgotten,While Chase Henry, the town drunkard,Has a marble block, topped by an urnWherein Nature, in a mood ironical,Has sown a flowering weed?