Since the beginning of the world, every human being has questioned their place in the world and what they may be capable of achieving. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas and “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray are two poems that convey the same message. The two poems convey the importance of meaning and the transience of life; however, the methods used by the authors to convey it are distinctive. The poem “Do Not Go Softly into That Good Night” describes how one should fight death to the end and live fully while one is alive. In the first stanza we see that death is something that even the elderly should not take lightly. “Old age should burn and rave at the end of the day; Anger, Anger at Gray explains how after a man's death his memory dies with him. “For them the fiery hearth will no longer burn, / Nor will the busy housewife attend to her evening cares; / No child runs to whisper of his father's return, / Or kneels on his knee to share the envied kiss” (Grey 21-24). Gray is trying to say that these poor men in the cemetery will not enjoy the simple pleasures they had when they were alive and that their families have moved on and forgotten them as the years have passed. No one expresses the importance a person had or still has in their life after their death and Gray expresses it as a rhetorical question. “For he who is a prey to mute oblivion, / This pleasant and anxious being has ever resigned himself, / Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, / Nor cast a longing and lingering glance behind (Grey 85-88). What this means is that no one will look back or spend their time remembering and keeping alive the memory of those who now rest in the cemetery. “They are largely forgotten, the speaker argues, but they shouldn't be, because everyone deserves to be remembered and mourned by someone” (Elegy Written in a Country