Fern Hill

A detailed Summary of Fern Hill


Dylan Thomas explores the life of a man coming to terms with mortality in his poem "Fern Hill", a picture book poem, whose tone and imagery is both melancholic and nostalgic in verse. It is with an artist's palette that the author describes a dying man's carefree days, with the use of colors to represent the seasons of his life.

It was green and gold in the spring of the speaker's life, the colors for growth and wealth respectively; and the speaker was still an innocent boy during this time. He was the "prince of the apple towns" and hayfields of his youth. Confident and airy, "[he] lordly had the trees and leaves", and had a view of life that bordered on arrogance; a sense of invincibility that stems from ignorance, like most children his age were prone to believe. "Time let [him] play and be", and the speaker believed that he would live forever; and that the world was his oyster. Such was his life then -- careless simplicity. And the speaker longed for that moment in time when he was still innocent, when time was "golden in the mercy of his means." But in truth he was slowly withering as "time held [him] green and dying / though [he] sang in [his] chains like the sea," he still longed to live.


Contemplating about life through mature eyes, things appear dramatically different from the speakers recollections of his childhood: "[he] ran [his] heedless ways / [his] wises raced through the house high hay/ And nothing [he] cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows.../ before the children green and golden/ Follow him out of grace." The speaker comes to a realization that his childhood has merely become a part of his memory, thriving in the recesses of his mind. Now, he remains caught in a predestined tapestry, a thread woven in Time's loom. Although at one point Time was on his side, he can only sit back and anticipate death's arrival: "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."

Winter is yet to be realized, but there is a sense of finality in the poem that it will occur. Time has proven that the one thing constant in life is that there is death. It is in accepting that all things will die, did the speaker realize that one could fully live.

In autumn, it is with melancholy eyes that the man views his world; his vibrant life in his youth, a stark contrast to his more somber years as an adult when time mat

Some common words found in the essay are:
Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas, green dying, held green dying, held green, dying / sang, green dying /, / sang chains, sang chains sea, ran heedless, dying /, / sang, sang chains, carefree days, chains sea, speaker comes, mercy means,

Approximate Word count = 818
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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