Fern Hill
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953
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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.