Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green
The night above the dingle starry
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home
In the sun that is young once only
Time lеt me play and be
Golden in thе mercy of his means
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long
In the sun born over and over
I ran my heedless ways
My wishes raced through the house high hay
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

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