Dylan Thomas’s “A Refusal to Mourn” was first published in “The New Republic” in 1945. It was published soon after the end of the Second World War. The poem is an emphatic refusal to mourn the dead. Here, the dead being represented by the child. The loss of a child is the greatest tragedy; and symbolic of life lost without having blossomed. Thomas simply refuses to mourn for it would relegate the child itself to the action of mourning. This refusal to mourn is rather a celebration of every innocent life lost.

The poet points to the ambiguous nature of death as it marks the destruction of life, but paves way for newer life. Bird, beast and flower alike are common and universal to this truth. Death fathers all-it has a towering, commanding and dominating effect over all. It is a kind of all-consuming darkness, that has a humbling-effect, for, in the face of death all are equal. All distinctions of high/low, rich/poor are erased in the face of it, humbling the person with the highest earthly paradigm of virtue. The phrase ‘bird beast and flowers’ may also denote the return to the nature or the basic elements of life-a universal phenomenon that marks the end of earthly individuality.…