Analysis of Fern Hill
Dylan Thomas 1914 (Swansea) – 1953 (Greenwich Village)
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
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.
Scheme | AXXXBC XXBBDXXBX EXBXXEAXX CXFXECXXG XXXGEAXFX BHIXXHDIB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111010100101 0101101010111 1011011110101 0101011110101 1110010 10101011 0111101100101 01010101010111 001111110 111101 100010111 0101011100101 11110101011101 0010110 001010101 10111110111001 11101011010111 010100100 010111 010100101 11111010100101 1011111011001 101010010 100101 01101001101001 10111011110111 101110010 011001 001111101 11111100110101 0011010110101 1101110 110111 0101100101011 10011101010111 001110010 11111 110110111 01011111111101 01110101101101 010101010 101111 10110011111111 1101011101111 00111110 111011 111111011 01101010110101 111110100010111 1111010 111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,314 |
Words | 447 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 297 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 75 |
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"Fern Hill" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/100070/fern-hill>.
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