A Little Poetry for You: Dylan Thomas

For some reason I've had "Fern Hill" stuck in my head for the last few weeks and this is the first opportunity I've had to include it in Poetry Friday. (Did I promise Browning? Browning will have to be next week I guess, as Thomas calls today.)

I like the images of the carefree child, who is able to be "prince" and "lordly" and "hunstman" and "herdsman" and "golden" all at once. It's about that time in your childhood when you did not yet know that childhood would not go on forever.

Fern Hill
Dylan Thomas

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.

To read the rest, and listen to Dylan Thomas reading the poem in very dramatic fashion, go here.