Dylan Thomas never really ventured far from his three favorite topics of birth, love and death. Many of his poems such
as death shall have no domain or do not go gentle into that good night offers us a insight into what he thought was after
death. This pattern of writing is not hard to understand once you have realized he was alive for three wars and the great
depression which would surly shape anyone to a darker thinking of humanity. One of the interesting topics that dylan likes
to stick to is that of love. Within most of his poems you can find at least a reference to this ever changing emotion. I think
this fascination with love came from his own more then crazy love life in which he had several poetic girlfriends, a wife
he stole from someone else, and at least three affairs. Birth is generally a very innocent topic but being that Dylan was
born sickly, at the start of World War I, I don't think that was the case for him. He loved to talk of this topic as such
though as he describes in The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower. he does this by the way he uses vivid imagery to
describe the start of life, which in turn is the only beautifully described thing in this poem.
Johns least favorite poem of Dylan Thomas
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.
This is my least favorite Poem of Dylan Thomas. i Feel as though this is a miss fit with his writing. Although their
is still the constant use of alliteration through this poem it does not roll as smoothly out of your mouth as many of his
other poems so often do. Another thing which i do not lioke about this poem is the fasct that the topic of a farm is
a bit strange for Dylan. This poem almost makes you feel as though he was looking at life with a blissful mindset instead
of his usual solum mindset. He does not however stray far away from his spiritual mindset. In many of the
stanzas he makes spiritual references such as in the second stanza he mentions the sabbath (the jewish holy day of rest, Saturday),
and later in the poem he actually says, "on the hills of praise," as if they have significant religious meaning to him.
A record of his struggle from darkness to some measure of light
