"As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away" struck a chord with me - that feeling of being supported enough to let go and fall asleep. Thank you for suggesting this poem, and to read it SLOWLY. I rush around too much - evidenced by breaking a bone in my hand recently - and still do not learn how to breathe and stay calm. I wish that my son might have memories like this when he grows up.
I had never read Fern Hill until you introduced us to it. I am so thankful we are diving deeper into it. It helps to understand the context of his life. Thank you Catherine for that link. I also listened to Richard Burton and Jim Merkise read it. Prince Charles’s version will need to wait until tomorrow. I love the Sabbath line the best as well. I also love the line “Time let me play and be. “ Thank you Susan for always including beautiful artwork in your essays.
Always enchantment fresh as morning, no matter how often read -- thanks. And for EVERYONE, here is Dylan Thomas himself reading 'Fern Hill' - his gorgeous voice!
I knew of this poem as a child because I attended a private school named after it - Fern Hill. Reading it again now, I'm not sure the headmistresses fully understood it. I would not want a school full of young children to believe their best years would soon be over. I wouldn't want them to get a whiff of mortality.
I admit that I melt, get lost, and wrapped up in lines such as:
"In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise."
But I also find myself resenting this level of carefree. I don't remember ever being unaware of mortality. And my childhood was anything but carefree. I experience much more of that feeling now in midlife than I did as a child, and I find myself equal parts resentful and disbelieving (like Stayer) at the idyllic portrayal of the poet's early years.
The beauty though, is undeniable. I disagree that "any decent artist could have invented such a childhood." The redeeming feature of this poem is precisely Thomas' invention, which is beyond beautiful. If I read it less as memoir and more as a dream, I'm able to shed the resistance that initially prevented me from being transported there. Thomas invents a place I'd argue lives only in the imagination - a place we all desperately long to visit, even if only briefly, in our minds and hearts. The glory of the poem is Thomas writes this impossible place so keenly and deeply felt, that for a moment, it exists.
I appreciate Thomas' talents more than his perspective. His relationship to mortality is not the one I'm attempting to cultivate. For that I look more to Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver. While he encourages his father to "to rage, rage against the dying of the light," I hope that, when the time comes, I'm ready to "go gentle into that good night."
Goosebumps at your reflections. And yes- read it as dream rather than memoir! And yes, agree that I have never related to raging at the dying of the light.
I have long loved "Fern Hill" and have a beautiful poster of it hanging on my study wall. Additionally, in my bedroom there is a gift from my daughter - a framed photo I took on the Dingle peninsula in Ireland, with my favorite words from Fern Hill inscribed at the top - "Time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the seas." Both my kids know these are the words I would like printed on any memorial bench or tombstone that will come after I'm gone. No truer words for my life have ever been spoken.
The composer John Corigliano's choral setting of "Fern Hill" was performed by the Oratorio Society of New York as the opening piece of their 152nd season at Carnegie Hall on November 10, 2025. I sang this with the society on that date, and it was so achingly beautiful, both the poetry and the music. Thank you for posting the poem and allowing me to experience those feelings again.
The "whinnying green barn" is a barn in its active living years filled with the sounds and the moisture-giving litter & mire of the barn's animals. They breathe moisture out and into the wood keeping it strong, supple, flexible. When a barn ages and is emptied of its livestock, the wood dries, shrinks, cracks, and falls to decay. Becoming too weak to weather harsh winters and heavy rain. Even the sunshine adds to its demise. These, of course, are the barns of yesteryear whose boards and beams have ingrained the character of the farmer, the farm's history of good years and bad, and the spirits of all it has held.
Must be a beautiful coincidence that you shared this on the day we've learned of the passing of Wendell Berry. His life story is not like that of this poem's author (which I read after reading the poem), but I couldn't help thinking of Wendell on his farm. May he rest in the peace of wild things.
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means…. So bittersweet
"As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away" struck a chord with me - that feeling of being supported enough to let go and fall asleep. Thank you for suggesting this poem, and to read it SLOWLY. I rush around too much - evidenced by breaking a bone in my hand recently - and still do not learn how to breathe and stay calm. I wish that my son might have memories like this when he grows up.
I had never read Fern Hill until you introduced us to it. I am so thankful we are diving deeper into it. It helps to understand the context of his life. Thank you Catherine for that link. I also listened to Richard Burton and Jim Merkise read it. Prince Charles’s version will need to wait until tomorrow. I love the Sabbath line the best as well. I also love the line “Time let me play and be. “ Thank you Susan for always including beautiful artwork in your essays.
Always enchantment fresh as morning, no matter how often read -- thanks. And for EVERYONE, here is Dylan Thomas himself reading 'Fern Hill' - his gorgeous voice!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNWBVlIBjQ8
I knew of this poem as a child because I attended a private school named after it - Fern Hill. Reading it again now, I'm not sure the headmistresses fully understood it. I would not want a school full of young children to believe their best years would soon be over. I wouldn't want them to get a whiff of mortality.
I admit that I melt, get lost, and wrapped up in lines such as:
"In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise."
But I also find myself resenting this level of carefree. I don't remember ever being unaware of mortality. And my childhood was anything but carefree. I experience much more of that feeling now in midlife than I did as a child, and I find myself equal parts resentful and disbelieving (like Stayer) at the idyllic portrayal of the poet's early years.
The beauty though, is undeniable. I disagree that "any decent artist could have invented such a childhood." The redeeming feature of this poem is precisely Thomas' invention, which is beyond beautiful. If I read it less as memoir and more as a dream, I'm able to shed the resistance that initially prevented me from being transported there. Thomas invents a place I'd argue lives only in the imagination - a place we all desperately long to visit, even if only briefly, in our minds and hearts. The glory of the poem is Thomas writes this impossible place so keenly and deeply felt, that for a moment, it exists.
I appreciate Thomas' talents more than his perspective. His relationship to mortality is not the one I'm attempting to cultivate. For that I look more to Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver. While he encourages his father to "to rage, rage against the dying of the light," I hope that, when the time comes, I'm ready to "go gentle into that good night."
Goosebumps at your reflections. And yes- read it as dream rather than memoir! And yes, agree that I have never related to raging at the dying of the light.
I have long loved "Fern Hill" and have a beautiful poster of it hanging on my study wall. Additionally, in my bedroom there is a gift from my daughter - a framed photo I took on the Dingle peninsula in Ireland, with my favorite words from Fern Hill inscribed at the top - "Time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the seas." Both my kids know these are the words I would like printed on any memorial bench or tombstone that will come after I'm gone. No truer words for my life have ever been spoken.
The composer John Corigliano's choral setting of "Fern Hill" was performed by the Oratorio Society of New York as the opening piece of their 152nd season at Carnegie Hall on November 10, 2025. I sang this with the society on that date, and it was so achingly beautiful, both the poetry and the music. Thank you for posting the poem and allowing me to experience those feelings again.
The "whinnying green barn" is a barn in its active living years filled with the sounds and the moisture-giving litter & mire of the barn's animals. They breathe moisture out and into the wood keeping it strong, supple, flexible. When a barn ages and is emptied of its livestock, the wood dries, shrinks, cracks, and falls to decay. Becoming too weak to weather harsh winters and heavy rain. Even the sunshine adds to its demise. These, of course, are the barns of yesteryear whose boards and beams have ingrained the character of the farmer, the farm's history of good years and bad, and the spirits of all it has held.
Thank you, Kathy, for adding a palpable layer to the poem.
Oh, that is such sad news! But his poetry lives on to inspire us.
Must be a beautiful coincidence that you shared this on the day we've learned of the passing of Wendell Berry. His life story is not like that of this poem's author (which I read after reading the poem), but I couldn't help thinking of Wendell on his farm. May he rest in the peace of wild things.