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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.
Dylan Thomas
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Read poems about / on: green, house, happy, moon, sun, sleep, running, birth, sky, time, children, light, fire, home, sea, dark, horse, child, river, rose
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Comments about this poem (Fern Hill
by
Dylan Thomas
) |
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comments about this poem (Fern Hill by
Dylan Thomas
)
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Ian Fraser
(2/18/2009 9:12:00 PM) |
The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, was one of the great writers of childhood and there are a number of his evocations on poethunter.com. By popular consent this is his finest. Perhaps this is so because at the conclusion he is forced to lament the passing of his childhood, 'Oh 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.' The poem is not faultless and does perhaps overdo slightly the repetiton of certain phrases, but it nevertheless glows with the most wonderful color, green and gold principally, and is shot through with many of the magical metaphors for which Thomas was famous. I had great difficulty choosing just one of Dylan Thomas' poems to go into my list of favorite poets (I had decided that in the interests of fairness I would only include one from each writer) . His two on the theme of death, 'And Death shall have no Dominion' and ' Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night' came very close and I might somewhat mischievously have chosen the whole of the unique 'Under Milk Wood' but in the end it had to be this.
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James Iacomini
(2/16/2009 1:13:00 AM) |
A beautiful poem indeed! ! I wish I had written it. Here's one of mine.
My Solitary View
I am glad
I can still see
the solitary view
of the apple tree
next to Aija's house
that stands beside
where Commanche
used to live.
A swayback barn
once stood to the
right of it.
Donnie used to
keep him there
in a little stall
behind the truck.
During winter,
he'd stand still next
to the barn
and breathe smoke -
just stand there
all day long
and abide the cold
and snow with
no mate,
just the rhythm
of his breath
to let him know
that he was there.
Many are the times
we stood and watched
each other breathing -
he less talkative
than I in his
chestnut coat.
He wasn't my horse.
He belonged to Aija
and Donnie and
the kids.
He was my neighbor
and I owned the view.
And I like to think
I earned his friendship
after all those years
staring out at him
the same way he
stared at me.
After all, there's
no point being hard.
He lived less
than a hundred
feet away and
there were times
when we were the
only population
from my yard
to his barn.
In spring, he'd
get the spirit
and he'd run.
You could hear him
lope and romp and
then you'd see him
move across
the picture window.
By summer he'd be
lean and shiny
nibbling apples
off that solitary tree.
And when the grass
was low on his side,
he'd wonder over
to mine
and munch upon
the edibles
and stick his head
inside the window
just to say hello.
Donnie would coax him
back to his side
and everybody laughed
at the sight of a horse
with his mouth
full of weeds
poking his nose
halfway through
the kitchen window –
his mouth and nose
pink and white
and freckled
bearing teeth and gums
making a horsey hello.
Then I left.
And when I came back,
Commanche was gone.
Donnie found
him a home
in another part
of the county.
It was just too much
paying for his feed.
The kids had
gone to college.
Donnie was
getting tired.
After Donnie died
behind the barn,
Aija called the men
from town to
tear it down.
They raked the
soil and planted seed.
Grass grew where
the barn once stood.
I needed time
to see the change
their leaving took,
despite the comfort
of the backyard pond
and offerings of sorrow
from the noble trees.
Donnie and Commanche
and the barn
once stood across
my bedroom window -
all that remains
is the apple tree
and my solitary view.
Iacomini
December 15,1992
Saratoga Springs, New York
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Cathy King
(5/22/2008 3:07:00 PM) |
This is possibly my very favorite poem ever. I actually declined to memorize it because I didn't want it ever to become rote.
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Tony Best
(2/29/2008 6:01:00 PM) |
This is one of the most beautiful poems ever. It reminds me of the freedom of childhood, when my soul was clear and sweet. A truly eternal poem
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Robert Howard
(12/24/2006 11:07:00 AM) |
There is a beautiful choral setting of this poem by the Pulitzer Prize winning composer, John Corigliano.
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