In the Poems by Eberhart and Thomas
Childhood is a topic of many poems because it is the experience that all the people have in their life. Many poets are trying to tell us about their childhood experiences through their literary works. All the people have different experiences with their childhood times. This all depends on diverse factors that happen throughout that period of time. The outer environment plays a big role in childhood for people. Some people may be happier and the others can be less satisfied with their childhood experiences. Two poems, “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas and “If I could only live at the pitch that near madness” by Richard Eberhart tell their readers about their childhood experiences, however, at the same time they present us with different ideas about this period of time in their lives.
The poem “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas tells his readers a story about the childhood experience and the thoughts that went over the poet’s mind during those graceful times in his life. Childhood is one of the most important times for everyone, because during that time we form our idea about the world and everything which is happening in it. It is very important to surround yourself by happy moments. The voice that we can see in the poem “Fern Hill” belongs to a male who is recalling his feelings about the childhood that he has had.
The poem “Fern Hill” was published for the first time in the year 1946. The poem tells the reader about the speaker who is telling us about his childhood days that he has spent on the farm near the nature. He tells us about his happiest time, his innocent childhood. It is obvious that the speaker is talking about the past experience as the first line in the poem uses the past tense “was” in it. He resembles of his childhood on the farm as a time that was happy in his life. The first stanza provides an image of what it was like to live on the farm with all of those fruit, vegetables and animals which are also very perfect for a little boy since it is like a dream come true.
The speaker of the poem points out that his childhood as everyone else’s had to end at a certain point. The child tells the reader about the experience specifically in the first half of the verse. This child has not matured yet and does not have any idea about the historical awareness. He recalls about the Garden of Eden in his memories. In the following lines we can find his ideas about Eden and who lives there “it was Adam and Maiden” (Thomas Web). He shows us his ideas of the world and how it functions in the overall. The author makes references to the Bible.
The life of the little boy consists of constant repetitions of natural processes and cycles. Therefore, the speaker seems to have no awareness of the time periods that happen throughout the poem. He is quite clueless about the time and how it works. Especially in the poem the author makes
References that “time, let me” (Thomas Web). So time is in control and not the speaker himself. The speaker refers to childhood time as a privileged land. The privileged land of childhood is the one who takes control of time and what is happening in the speaker’s life.
The poem starts showing a little boy who is quite innocent in his contemplations the idea of “middle landscape” that exists in every person’s life. This idea consists of the plantation of the different plants and having animals in your life and idea of having a little house somewhere in the middle of the nature. In the poem a speaker still lives in the world of childhood. Therefore, he still has some time to create this perfect idea of the life that he wants to have and the things that he wants to be surrounded by. The author gives his speaker a power to create his own life and surroundings that he sees in it. Dylan Thomas presents his reader to a very idealized word of childhood time because our hero gets to choose his own life and everything that he wants to see in it. This season of life, as the writer glorifies it, is a bonus which is an undeserved and unforeseen help, similar to a ready apple that has passed over a tree on a more odd's property and that the eager bystander has a privilege to pick it up and consume it.
The poem “If I could only live at the pitch that near madness” by Richard Eberhart has more of a less positive perception of the world compared to the poem which was discussed above. The author is constantly using the “if” structure, even in the title of his poem. He says “Then I cast them out of the trees and fields” (Eberhart Web). The author recalls his childhood and sees how innocent everything felt and seemed at that time of his life. He sees everything positive and nice during that time.
It is hard for the speaker to understand why everything has changed. It seems to him that everything that was before the adulthood was perfect. Just like in the previous poem the reader can tell that a speaker is an adult now because he is using past tense throughout the whole verse. He is trying to see what has changed throughout that period of time since it is not childhood anymore. The author makes a reference to adulthood and calls it “realm to complexity”.
However, he thinks of his childhood and says that “reality was the perfection of my sight (Eberhart Web). He makes a good contrast between adult and childhood period of time. He seems to be happier with his life during childhood when he felt careless and did not have any responsibilities in his life. The speaker seems to be disappointed with his adulthood time. The imagery of childhood looks like a paradise for the author. It is a time when he could be free and could do whatever he wanted to do.
In conclusion, it is necessary to state that two poems “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas and “If I could only live at the pitch that near madness” by Richard Eberhart use the similar idea of the childhood in them. We all know that it is one of the best time in the life of every person and both of the authors prove it with ideas that they present in their poems. Adulthood seems for them to be harder and more with emotional clouds of unhappiness in comparison to the childhood times when they were one unity with everything that surrounded them and they did not have to think about any problems in their lives. They could simply breathe in the life and be happy with all the things that happen in it. These poems show the image of the childhood the way most of the people see it and understand it. The poems show the ideas that many people see in the adulthood because most of us want to go back to the perfect land of childhood.
Works Cited
Eberhart, Richard. If I could only live at the pitch that near madness. Print.
Thomas, Dylan. Fern Hill. Web. Poemhunter.com.
<http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fern-hill/>
