The Glass is Half-Empty 
 

I know the gist of Dylan Thomas' poem, "Fern Hill," is something like living with no thought for the future until it's too late. Do you have a complete analysis of the poem you could send me? We're performing a choral work by John Corigliano that uses the poem as the text of the music and I'd love to be able to explain the poem fully to the choir.

I have no formal background in poetry, though I'm a life-long poetry lover. My use of poetry at this site is to illustrate some Enneagram dynamics (you may have seen my article on Stevie Smith's poem, "Not Waving But Drowning").  

Fours are known for their focus on the past, their concern for the dissolution of the world in general, and their specific pain, which makes it difficult to enjoy the present. However, it was somewhat arbitrary of me to assign this poem to Fours. I could make a case for other styles as well. We all dig in our heels when an opening for change occurs. We've bought in so dogmatically to the apparent rewards from behaving as we always have, it's difficult to let go and face the unknown aspects of a changed perspective. I've chosen "Fern Hill" to represent in part the Enneagram Four's particular delusion: "I am who I am through the image of suffering." 

The poem illustrates for me the fixation of Fours on the tragedy and romance of life. This dynamic characterizes all of us to some degree - but others aren't quite so hooked by life's tragedy (Tom Condon says Fours "live in their imagination and feelings" and may be "artistic, articulate and inspiring or whiny, elitist and negative").

Fours have difficulty moving beyond their sorrowful view, which is captured beautifully, I think, in the lines, "And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows / In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs / Before the children green and golden / Follow him out of grace," or in "Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea." One of my Four friends said she was "too busy trying to stay afloat in my own ocean" to act on the problems she saw her adult children facing. This is the penultimate Four-ish quality (and one we can all identify with), to see only the glass half-empty - because we tend to identify with these deep feelings, to be lost in them, to remember even happy childhood memories with anguish and, most important, to "sing in our chains."

In another article about Fours I quoted Nicholas Cage from a Mirabella magazine interview. Cage was influenced by an admission of Jim Morrison's shortly before his death "that he had never done a song that conveyed pure happiness. Cage said it was for him "a cautionary warning to develop that side of myself...and not just stay in the dark side...." This comment shows an awareness of how fixated he'd been on the image of himself as "Angst Man." 

In another on-line article I wrote, "One of the ways I've experienced a Four-like anguish is... a mourning for all the pain and evil in the world and an attraction to 'doing something about it' (e.g., volunteering to take meals to AIDS victims) without actually moving past my emotions and taking action. As one of my Four friends expressed it, "When I'm in this place I avoid meditation/prayer because of fearing if I looked for my essential Self 'there might be no one home.' When I can stay with this fear I 'remember' myself, become more clear about what I value, and act accordingly."

Fern Hill doesn't fit Fours in that Thomas' childhood memories in this poem are generally positive, whereas Fours tend to dwell on the problems in their past… but his words do imbue even the happiest memories with a sense of impending tragedy, the glass half-empty.

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