Fern Hill
...mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves And the sun grew round that very day. In the sun born over and over, Before the children green and golden A symbol in the poem occurs: And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns. Princes are those who have a lot of political and social power. What separates them from kings, is that princes are generally young, at least younger than their fathers. Many metaphors concerning the opposite of youth, aging, are located in the entirety of the last stanza of the poem. Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. In the moon that is al...