Beginning of Essay
Death. Even the mere suggestion of the word is able to conjure up visions of dark, grisly impressions and cold, somber moods. The subject of death is neither an appropriate nor amusing subject of conversation among people because of the ill feelings of tragedy a ....

Middle of Essay
.... mark the end of the world when the end of the world when the "last light" breaks and the seas are silenced. This stanza establishes a cycle of darkness before creation and a darkness after destruction that lays a symbolic foundation for the rest of the poem. The next stanza depicts Thomas as he himself enters this cosmic cycle and reveals this tremendously cosmic cycle to be death. Thomas's word choice is crucial as he describes the death cycle in order to compress as much meaning into as few words as possible, because it is his words that allow the reader to comprehend death as a religious as well as natural and inescapable experience. The use ....