In The Force That Through the Green Fuse, he speaks of a force that “drives [his] green age”, the force being some sort of energy. The use of ‘green’ implies his youth was healthy and bright, showing he had a positive childhood, similar to the line “happy as the grass was green” from Fern Hill.

Throughout the three poems, Thomas expresses the idea that childhood is carefree, playful and ignorant. For example, in Fern Hill, Thomas talks about his memories as a child on a farm, and says he was “prince of the apple towns”; this tells us that Thomas was playing and thought himself as a prince of the farm in a role-play fashion, as if he is the centre of his universe which children often feel when they are playing. Continuing this role play theme, he writes, “I was huntsman and herdsman”, which are opposites of each other, showing that as a child he can play both roles in his own world. He continues to say he was “green and carefree”, the use of green implying his youth as a child, and creating cohesion with the previous use of the word, and he tells the reader that he was carefree, that he had nothing to worry about. This tells us he had a good childhood.

In Poem in October, the idea that he was within his own world as a child is repeated. As he walks through a town on his birthday, he imagines the birds in the sky to be “flying [his] name”, suggesting that as a child he thinks everyone knows that it is his birthday, and that he is the centre of the universe which is common of children.

Thomas also presents the idea of childhood feeling everlasting. For example, in Fern Hill particularly, there are many references to time, such as “time let me hail and climb”, “time let me play and be”, “time held me green”. All these references to time show that his childhood was timeless, unlike his life as an adult that is controlled by time. Thomas has also linked in his ideas of childhood being carefree with long-lasting in the line “and nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows”, showing that the ever-lasting time of his childhood allowed him to be care free.

In Poem in October, Thomas emphasises the fact that his childhood felt ever-lasting by showing the reader that he still expects this feeling to live on through adulthood, but it doesn’t; “And there I could marvel my birthday away but the weather turned around” – the use of the weather represents himself becoming older but his memories as a child are still with him, even though his long-lasting childhood has finally ended.

In contrast to these positive experiences of childhood that Thomas describes, he finally puts forward the idea that as an adult, he now sees childhood as something precious and sadly missed; in Poem in October, he writes “the true joy of the long dead child”, implying that when he was a child, he was full of joy but that child (his childhood) has now gone now that he is an adult.