Well,Hurkyl,let's see if there's something wrong with my & Integral's logics:
\frac{d^{2}y}{dx^{2}}=-ye^{x}
\int (\int \frac{dy}{y}) dy=-\int(\int e^{x}dx) dx
\int \ln y dy=-e^{x} +Cx+D
y(\ln y-1)=-e^{x}+Cx+D'(1)
It's impossible to put the solution as y=y(x).Since we're interested in the asymptotic behavior of y,le's study (1) when
a)x\rightarrow +\infty
Then the RHS of (1) goes to -\infty,which means that the 'y' in the LHS goes to 0.
b) x\rightarrow -\infty
Then for C>0,RHS goes to -\infty,which means 'y' in the LHS goes to 0.,and for C<0,RHS goes to +\infty,which means 'y' in the LHS goes to +\infty.
So imposing C\geq0,u have that,in asymptotic limits,'y' is bounded.
I don't know whether Arildno's approach would yield different conclusions.Afer all,that's a messy equation.If the spring's 'constant' is not constant,but varies exponentially with the departure from the initial (equilibrium) solution,it means that string would stretch to infinity,because the constant would be infinite.However,there's damping,which again varies exponentially with 'x',so the string could go to infinity only under certain circumstances (in my analysis,C<0) and could have a bounded highly damped oscillation for C>=0.
Daniel.