suggested reading method
To best savour this artwork, please take a moment to eliminate distractions. Consider minimizing all other windows on your computer; putting other devices (phone, tv etc) aside; taking a deep breath, to the full extent of your lung capacity; and focusing solely on the “artwork” section.
Once you’ve processed that to your satisfaction, the rest of the post is optional reading, provided only to share my own impressions and reasons for choosing this piece.
artwork
Fern Hill
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
by Dylan Thomas, first published in Horizon magazine in 1945
interpretation
I realize this is a long poem, but I hope you can stick with it all the way through and give each line and verse due consideration. (Perhaps it would help to listen to the recording of Thomas himself? He gives the lines a pleasant, songlike lilt.) One could argue the length was the style of the time, now outdated; however, I think this also underscores the poem’s main themes of nostalgia and the passage of time.
Essentially all of the first five out of six verses are devoted to conveying the deep nostalgia the poet-speaker holds for his past. In his youth, he enjoyed nature on the farm. He was a “lordly” “prince”; the sun was “round” and birthing the poet-speaker every day; the streams were “holy”; the owls, foxes, pheasants, and more were living in loud and bright harmony. He was on top of the world and nothing could go wrong. This idyllic image lies in sharp contrast to his awareness in the last two lines, that “Time held me green and dying” and “I sang in my chains like the sea.” Personifying “Time” allows the poet-speaker to describe how time was influencing his life all along, flying by (similar to the cliché “time flies”). Time keeps the poet-speaker at his “mercy,” as the poet-speaker knows he’s been “chained” to the eventuality of age and death. Perhaps it was in an attempt to make the most of his youth that he “sang” despite the limitations of his human lifespan.
With the current state of global conflict, I can begin to imagine the poignancy Thomas might have wished to express at the end of World War II in 1945. Today as well, we can’t forget that life is all too short. Beautiful moments of “green” and perfect youth help make life worth living, even/especially if we appreciate them more after they’ve passed us by.
context
Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer of short stories and film scripts, as well as an occasional performer on radio broadcasts and in plays. He is most famous for his villanelle “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
According to the official Dylan Thomas website: “Fernhill is a small farm near to the village of Llangain [in Carmarthenshire county, Wales]. During Dylan’s childhood it was farmed by his Aunt Ann Jones and her husband Jim, and his visits there clearly made a lasting impression on him.”
Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments!