Dylan Thomas- A Short Story and A Poem

It has been a very long time since I read anything by Dylan Thomas (1914 to 1953, Wales,UK).  I read the same single poem most everyone who has read him will have read.  Here it is:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

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 they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

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.

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 sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that 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"

(The work of Dylan Thomas is within the public domain.)

"The Burning Baby" (1953, first published in Adventures in the Skin Trade) is included in one of the short story anthologies I am working my way through, The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories.   "The Burning Baby" is a challenging, to me at least,  story.   I am sure there are folk lore motifs I am missing in this story but it draws in the killing of hares to the killing of a baby.  The killer is her father who may also have sexually molested her.  This is presented almost like it were a sacred event in a Central American   religion six hundred years ago.  The imagery is worthy of a great poet.   I am very glad to have added Dylan Thomas to the authors featured on The Reading Life. 

Mel u