Fern Hill

"Poem on His Birthday" by Dylan Thomas (1952)

In this poem, Thomas celebrates his 35th birthday. He wrote it in 1951, although his 35th birthday was in 1949 and he may have started the poem around that time. In the poem, he sees himself as moving toward death but makes a point of celebrating his life and praising the beauty of the whole of creation. Thus, he does what in “Fern Hill” he did not. Rather than looking back on an idyllic childhood—although he does touch on things he has lost over the course of his life—he celebrates the life he has as an adult, even though he knows he is on a “voyage to ruin.”

"The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower" by Dylan Thomas (1933)

This was one of Thomas’s early poems. He writes with great seriousness and intensity about the “force”—the life energy flowing through all things. The force animates him in his youth but is also his “destroyer.” In that sense it is similar to time as depicted in “Fern Hill,” although this poem has none of the joy and exuberance of the later poem. As a result of the workings of “the force,” all things drive their way through life on their way toward death. Nothing escapes its mortal fate.

"Poem in October" by Dylan Thomas (1946)

This poem was published in the same collection (Deaths and Entrances) that contained “Fern Hill.” It is a celebration of the poet’s 30th birthday, and is written in a similar style to the other poem. Taking a walk on a beautiful October morning, he suddenly recalls his childhood, when he walked in the mornings with his mother: “Through the parables / Of sun light / And the legends of the green chapels.” This recollection of the joy he experienced as a boy, which takes up the last three stanzas of the poem, is very reminiscent of “Fern Hill.”

"Voyages I" by Hart Crane (1926)

“Voyages I” by 20th-century American poet Hart Crane, was the first of a suite of six short poems. Like “Fern Hill,” it is a poem about childhood and the loss of it. The poem features an adult speaker watching some children playing on the beach. He observes their innocent enjoyment and thinks that he would like warn them not to grow up—“there is a line  / You must not cross”—because life can be cruel.