Love will continue its purpose of regeneration, and death will not rule life (Magill 68). Thomas tries to convey a feeling of hope in this stanza. He believes that as terrible as death is, there is still love and it will carry on forever. The second stanza works with images of death and of torture, and plays on the paradox that the broken will remain whole: "And death shall have no dominion / Under the windings of the sea" (10-11) is referring to someone dying under the sea, and "Split all ends up they shan't crack" (17) is referring to the paradox that the broken will remain whole. The third stanza is saying that whatever happens to the world, death will never rule. In lines such as, "No more may gulls cry" (20) and a "break in the sun till the sun breaks down / And death shall have no dominion," (26-27) Thomas shows the reader that even if the sun never shines again death will not rule. Nothing in this poem is actually based on Thomas" experience, unlike the next poem, "Fern Hill." .
"Fern Hill" is considered one of the most beautiful and reminiscent recollections of childhood in all of English literature. It was written in Wales in 1944, but did not appear until the publication of Deaths and Entrances in 1946. This poem is subtler in the theme of life and death than the other two. In "Fern Hill" Thomas explores life and death by recalling actual childhood experiences at his aunt's farmhouse called Fern Hill. He opens the poem like a storyteller and "presents an idyllic picture of childhood on a farm, filled with vivid imagery which presents a child's view of the world" (Tremlett 150). As the poem continues, Thomas uses exaggeration to emphasize that it is a child's eyes through which the reader is looking as in such descriptions as "the hay / Fields high as a house" (19-20). Such lines as "I was prince of the apple towns"(6) demonstrates that the child sees everything as larger than life.