Fern Hill

“Fern Hill” is a fond reminiscence of childhood. The speaker is an adult looking back on his boyhood when he spent his summers on a farm. The first stanzas convey a sense of the child’s innocent, unselfconscious unity or harmony with nature, in which he continually delights and exults. The farm is an eternal paradise for him. In Stanza 1, time is evident, but it allows the young boy to feel as if he is lord of all he sees and in which he participates (“time let me hail and climb / Golden” Lines 4-5). He walks “honoured” (Line 6) among the hay wagons and is a “prince” (Line 6) of the apple orchard. Everything in nature seems bathed in light (Line 9).

Stanza 2 continues the same theme. No shadows fall on the boy’s happiness. He is “green” (Lines 10 and 15), which shows he is absorbed within nature’s summer greenery; however, the word may also carry a perhaps unintended underlying meaning of “green,” meaning naïve, innocent, or inexperienced. Regardless, time continues to allow him to “play and be / Golden in the mercy of his means” (Lines 13-14). This is the second occurrence of the word “golden” as applied to the boy, which suggests the radiance of youth.