"The Quiet Life" by Alexander Pope portrays a life in which bliss is achieved through a quiet, simple life. The "few paternal acres" that the happy man lives on has "herds with milk" and "fields with bread" as well as flocks that clothe him and trees that provide shade in the summer and firewood in the winter, thereby equating a pastoral life to an idyllic life. Pope goes onto write that those who are "blest" are those who are able to find time to "slide soft away" to a "peace of mind". Yet, it's not just the simplicity of a farm life and the silence that brings a man to happiness, its also "study and ease" that would nurture the mind.
"Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas reflects on a childhood memory of interactions with nature. Thomas "was the prince of apple towns" and "famous among the barns" in his memories. He even goes so far as to include Adam and his maiden, presumably Eve, into his memories, and thus comparing Fern Hill to Eden and it's splendor. Yet the poem shifts at the last stanza from the pristine retelling of a treasured childhood memory to Thomas's perception of the now. He acknowledges that those days, as compared to now, were the innocent "lamb white days", and that since then time had taken him "by the shadow of [his] hand" and led him into adulthood and leading him into the night, as representing by the rising moon.
These poems are tied together with their basis in nature, one depicting a future with nature and the other depicting a past with nature. Pope creates serenity within his portrayal, hoping the "native air", "sweet recreation", and "meditation" would let him "live, unseen, unknown". On the other hand, Thomas's depiction is much more lively as he was "green and carefree" while he "ran in [his] heedless ways". Their futures also are contrasted, with Pope's narrator stating "unlamented let me die" while Thomas's mind is wracked with the bliss of the past as he "[sings] in [his] chains like the sea."
So what are his chains?
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