And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy
55 In the listening Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery Sang alive 60 Still in the water and singingbirds.
And there could I marvel my birthday Away but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of the long dead child sang burning In the sun.
65 It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth Still be sung 70 On this high hill in a year's turning.
1944 1946
Fern Hill1
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 dingle2 starry, Time let me hail and climb
1. Name of the Welsh farmhouse, home of his idays as a boy. aunt Ann Jones, where Thomas spent summer hoi- 2. Deep dell or hollow, usually wooded.
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FERN HILL / 2449
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 Dow n 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,
An d 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 An d 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 night-jars3
Flying with the ricks,0 and the horses haystacks 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 Ada m and maiden,4 Th e 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 An d 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
Species of bird. 4. Cf. Genesis 1.
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245 0 / DYLA N THOMA S 50 I should hear hi m fly with the high fields An d wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Tim e held me green and dying Thoug h I sang in my chains like the sea. 1945 1946 Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night Do not go gentle into that good night, Ol d age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 5Thoug h wise me n at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Goo d men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a greenRage, rage against the dying of the light. bay, I O Wil d me n who caught and sang the sun in flight, An d learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. 15Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. An d you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, IDo not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. pray. 1951 1952
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Voices f: rom World War II
In December 1939, a few months after the start of World War II, a leading article in The Times Literary Supplement urged poets to do their duty: 'it is for the poets to sound the trumpet call. . . . The monstrous threat to belief and freedom which we are fighting should urge new psalmists to fresh songs of deliverance.' The biblical diction reveals the underlying expectation that the poets of 1940 would come forward, like those of 1914, to sanctify the cause with images of sacrifice derived from Jesus Christ's precedent and precept: 'greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' Far from taking up trumpets, the poets responded bitterly?C. Day Lewis with the poem 'Where Are the War Poets?':
