Dylan Thomas' poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and Joan Aleshire's poem "Slipping" carry out the same thematic message about the "[...] cycle of birth and death [...]." (Dylan Thomas. 18 Sept. 2002 1) and that people should face it with ease. Both poets present the theme to the audience in their own style. Dylan Thomas uses a negative attitude of the aging man "[...] with your fierce tears [...]" (84) toward death to express the theme while Joan Aleshire presents it with the a more positive, lovable, "[...] reserve has slipped from his feeling [...]" (86) attitude. However, as one reads the two poems, one finds the similarities and differences in the ideas and techniques that Dylan Thomas and Joan Aleshire use to create the theme.
             Dylan Thomas presents the theme through tone, figurative language, rhyme, and diction. The situation of a "[...] father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with you fierce tears [...]" (16-17) creates a serious, sad tone for the poem. Beside tone, Dylan Thomas also uses figurative language such as simile and personification. He uses simile to advice the old man that "Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay," (14). He animates "[the] frail deeds [...] danced in the green bay," (8) to motivate the aging man to go on with his life by thinking about the deeds that he did. The author also uses rhyme schemes aba and abaa as a technique to establish his work. For example, in the first stanza, which goes "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." (1-3), creates a rhyme scheme aba. The last quatrain,
             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. (...