In his poem, “Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas shows us how the enjoyment of life becomes a memory as time goes on. The theme of the story has taken two colors green and gold, green being when a person is young and gold being when a person is old. However, most people would just read half of the paper and say that the poem was about childhood and the people who read the poem thoroughly would argue that it was also about dying. The author in this poem uses assorted colors to describe the way he felt. Being a child there is no reason but to feel, “happy as the grass is green” (2).
By being young, a child has no worries and that is what the author is telling us.
A young one that lived on a farm had no worries and when the family rode into town there had to be someone to look after the horses and pass time till the parents came back, so being “prince of the apple towns,” was one way to pass the time (6).
Green can mean a lot of things such as, young, no worries, inexperienced, unproven in life, and a lot of things to look forward to. For a person to relax one might go out in “the hay Fields as high as the house,” and imagine the shapes that the clouds made or what ever came to mind first (19/20).
By being golden the speaker is trying to tell us many different things. Golden can mean a lot of things such as, old, sacred, good old days, and maybe even golden memories that will never be forgotten.
Time in this poem plays a big role. It is almost like the speaker is telling us to enjoy life while we can, because “In the sun that is young only once” (12) has a lot of true meaning. That statement meaning that as a child we are hurrying time up and making it pass by, and when we get golden we are trying to slow the time back down. People look back through all of the years and ask where the time has gone. Well, time by then is just an ancient memory that no one can take away. Time works against people and they begin to find it out when they get feeble, and they tend to look back and say, “I wish I was young again.” As soon as a person is born they are starting to die and that is part of life.
Through out the whole poem Thomas also shows us how the sound bears on the theme by the many different sounds in the world today. Sound comes from various sources, such as from vehicles, machinery, animals, buildings, or other things. There is no other kind of warming or soothing sound than those that come from a farm. In this poem, “the calves/ Sang to my horn” (lines 15/16).
I can see it now, the calves coming over the hill singing back at the sound that the speaker made with his horn. By reading this poem and having it explained to me, it made me look back on all the things that have happened to me in my life. Time has already flown by. Years start to get faster and faster as time goes on. Another thing about this poem that caught my eye was the farm. I have a farm myself that in the summer all I do is work to keep it looking nice.
I have lain in hey fields looking at the sky just relaxing. The speaker of this poem reminded me of my grandfather who owns the farm, and has talked about all the things that he remembers about his golden days. I think in order for a person to understand what the speaker is trying to get across a person must read the whole poem in order to understand how time flies and that a person is only green as grass once. Take life one day at a time and enjoy it.