Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait
The first stanza presents a scene that takes place on a coast. Birds are present to look at a man with blue eyes and long hair as he gets far from the noisy city. The man is on a boat starting its voyage and everyone seems to say goodbye to it.
The people on the boat are eager to get back on the sea but the land looks at the ship with longing and with sadness. The first three stanzas are used as an introduction to the poem, the narrator presenting the departure of the ship. The land could be used here as a way to refer to the people left behind while the sea represents the opportunities and the adventures offered to those willing to take the risk.
In the next part of the poem, the ship is on the sea and the sails are exposed to the elements. Despite this, it continues to stay up, unmoving and thus the ship continues its voyage. At some point, the men on the ship see wales and they start perusing them.
The poem then moves to present another aspect of the life as a sailor, namely how dangerous it is. The sea is described as being a graveyard where countless bodies lay buried, thus showing how dangerous the life of a sailor can be. The graveyards are inhabited by hyenas and nightingales, symbols of death and destruction.
The end of the poem returns on land where the sailors are now. They are described as being lost, sitting in their homes and looking towards the sea they considered their home.
Poem in October
The poem begins with the narrator talking about how he woke up on the morning of his 13th birthday and left the house to take a walk. He describes the shores, as they were on that day in October, the sound of the many birds near the shore and also the stillness of the city.
The second stanza begins with the line ‘’My birthday began with the water’’ and then continues by claiming that the first day of his 13th year was the moment his life began. As the quiet city began to wake, the narrator walks over the fences near the city and starts on foot his journey. Another important element to note is the rain that started falling, signaling the beginning of a harsher period for the narrator.
In the third stanza the narrator describes the hills and the birds and how the sun started shining over the hills. The hills are described as being welcoming places, contrasting with the harsh environment near the sea and the ever blowing wind that swept the shores.
In the fourth stanza the narrator turns around and looks at the city near the sea being covered by mist and rain and the once imposing buildings appearing to be as small as snails from a distance. The narrator ends the fourth stanza with the line ‘’But the weather turned around.’’
The fifth stanza presents an idealized image of the city, the narrator mentioning this time the abundance that characterized the town and the fond memories the narrator had concerning his mother. The narrator sees himself walking through the city, holding his mother’s hand and walking through a green scenery torn from the fairytales. The narrator sees himself as through a dream and in the end the rain covers everything once more and the narrator has to face the reality.
‘’The weather turned around’’ in the sixth stanza and the narrator is on the hill, looking at the city bellow him and realizing the child in his heart had died.
This is remembered
The poem mentioned above has the purpose of enumerating all the things that a person remembers. The narrator mentions painful thins such as loss and the pain caused by love while also mentioning events that make people happy such as the first time they get to know a woman sexually, the touch of their mothers and religion.
The narrator also claims that we, as humans, will always remember our first loves, no matter how much time it will pass. The narrator also claims that ‘’half is forgotten’’ thus highlighting the idea that the human mind is not reliable and can be tricked.
The poem ends with the narrator highlighting once more the idea that we, as humans, forget more than we can realize and that the things we remember are more than often painful memories.
We Lying by Seasand
The action in the poem takes place near the sea, on the shores. The shores and the sand as described as being graves and the sea receives a morbid connotation as well. Rivers are described as being blood red and the sea as being the cause of all illnesses. The people on the shore pray for the wind to come and sweep the sand away and leave behind only red rock. The narrator’s desires are not met and all he can do is stay and watch the shores being covered by sand.
Despite the inevitability of death, life is joyous and glorious, says Thomas in this poem about his childhood recollected many years later. ' Fern Hill' invites comparison with poems on childhood by Wordsworth, Vaughan and Blake. It has marked with affinities with Wordsworth's 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality' regarding content, form, imagery, and treatment.
Fern Hill was the farm of Thomas's aunt Ann Jones situated near Llanbri in South Wales. Thomas recalls in 'Fern Hill' holidays spent there away from Swansea. The excitement and innocence of childhood is revivified. The poem is highly successful in transmitting to the reader the exhilaration of childhood experiences through daringly original imagery and a highly individual idiom of speech. Repetitions in the poem are evocative of the emotional aura that tries to build up.
