Dylan Thomas: Waves of Music, Waves of Sorrow

I can think of no more fitting introduction to Dylan Thomas than to ask you to read aloud one of his most famous poems, “Fern Hill.” Reading aloud is crucial because it is the creating of pleasing word sounds to which Dylan Thomas and, in fact, his father, his Uncle Marlais, and numerous countrymen, were committed. It was during his second creative burst of poetry production in 1945, the 31st year of his brief 39-year life, that Thomas wrote this poem with its stirring evocations of childhood. He then lived and wrote in the picturesque seaside town of Laugharne, South Wales. In fact, it was while living in many such towns, and not while in London, that he was able to write his finest poetry.

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 heyday 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.