Peaceful Death or Fighting Death

Peaceful Death or Fighting Death

One of the easiest ways to express feelings about live, love, and even death is through poetry. The way people view these events in their lives differs from others. Expressing certain views on how one should be approached can be either one of just let it come and stand and face it fighting. In the poems, "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas, the arrival of death is met with a just let it come and face death head on. Everyone knows that death is an inevitable part of life, and how one faces it depends on their feelings towards it.

In "Let Evening Come", Kenyon portrays death as a peaceful ending to a day. She shows how its just a natural event. Let the cricket take up chafing / as a woman takes up her needles / and her yarn. Let evening come (lines 4-6). Death should not be met with force but with a welcoming embrace that is as natural as the rising of the moon and the appearing of the stars. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned / in the long grass. Let the stars appear / and the moon disclose her silver horn. (7-9). Approaching death calm and peaceful makes the thought of dying seem less terrifying and welcoming event in one's life.

A fighting approach to death is what gives a person the ability to stand up and not allow the fear of dying to let them accept it in a peaceful, welcomed manner that is shown in "Let Evening Come". Showing how to approach death in a fighting manner is shown in "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night". Thomas shows that every walk of life experiences death and they have a choice to either fight the coming of death or to sit back and let it come quietly in Kenyon's poem. Death does not care if we are old men, wise men, good men, wild men, grave men, or someone's father, it will come for us. Choosing to stand and fight the approach of death is just as natural as fighting for what is wanted in life. At the end of his poem, Thomas makes a plea to his father, wanting him to not give up without a fight. 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. (16-19).

The ability to welcome death, either peaceful and relaxed or defiant ready to fight for our last breath, comes from the way our lives were lived. If we had spent our lives fighting to live and by doing good deeds, then we will not just sit back and allow death to take us without a fight. That point is made when Thomas writes, 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. (7-9). On the other hand, if