"Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas is a lyrical poem about time and its fleeting ways. The speaker in this poem reminisces about his childhood home and how society forces himself and untold numbers to join the realm of adulthood early. He gives off the "If I knew then what I know now..." vibe throughout as he realizes that the youthful carefree bliss he felt has transformed into the cynicism of mature human.

Throughout the poem, the speaker compares Fern Hill to the Garden of Eden, but in this case, the snake in question represents adulthood not temptation. He alludes to this when he mentions "Adam and maiden", the blessed inhabitants of the Garden of Eden also the first man and woman to be created. The speaker is saying that being young on the farm was like the innocent Adam and Eve the Garden, except instead of Satan tricking him into eating the forbidden fruit, it's the end of his childhood that is ripped away. "And the sabbath rang slowly, in the pebbles of the holy streams" With the use of "rang" in the portion before, I think the pebbles are supposed to signify church bells, and Fern Hill was his place where he could have a "sabbath", or a holy day of rest. The farm is a holy place where the speaker's youth was preserved. He talks about the "first light" and how the sun was created, not flat-out saying it, but giving us the image of God's seven-day creation. He isn't directly referencing the Bible itself in any of these images, but he uses Fern Hill as a sacred spot and his own personal place of worship. 

    With one specific image, you can see the progression of this poem: the color green. The speaker starts out very honestly and simply by describing his feelings, "As happy as the grass is green", and of course this otherworldly place has incredible, iridescent grass! The color represents happiness, innocence, and his uncomplicated way and view of life. This carries into the next stanza when he says he was green and untroubled, and again as he was green and golden. Gold is a color of wealth, in this case emotional satisfaction. In stanza three it changes and suddenly his innocence and feeling of blithe is eaten by the green fire. This is a statement illustrates the fragility of happiness, and how instantly it can be annihilated. At this point, green has become a motif for his emotional wellbeing. In stanza five, the children are green and golden, and being led out of grace. He is explains that children will eventually have to grow up, and in the same line, they are being led out of their childhood. The swift transformation reflects how fast children grow into maturity. In the final stanza, he is green and dying. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker was young and in the 'spring' of his youth, but now, green is being associated with rot, symbolizing the death and decay of his early life. Understanding in the last vestiges of life, his time a kid was swiftly pulled away from him, forcing the narrator to acknowledge his inescapable chains of time.