Garden of Love, The Analysis

I laid me down upon a bank,

Where Love lay sleeping;

I heard among the rushes dank

Weeping, weeping.



Then I went to the heath and the wild,

To the thistles and thorns of the waste;

And they told me how they were beguiled,

Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.



I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.



And the gates of this Chapel were shut

And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore.



And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tombstones where flowers should be;

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

.: The Garden of Love :.

In “The Garden of Love”, William Blake portrays his disgust towards the church of his day and all the restrictions and limits it puts on his “joys and desires” and the way he expresses Love. He displays this foreboding tone with the use of imagery and symbolism.
The poem begins with the narrator lying beside a river and listening to Love weep. This is the first indication the reader receives that Love is under attack. He then walks over to the “heath and wild”, where the “thistles and thorns of the wild” tell him how they are “driven out” and made to be pure and innocent. These thorns and thistles represent Love’s wild passions and desires that are compelled to be subdued.
The next stanza actually states what is restraining Love. It tells of a chapel that has been erected where the narrator once used to play. Already, the reader can see that the church is restricting Blake. Where he once used to frolic, there is a mammoth building hindering him from doing so. The next verse goes into more detail as it describes the doors of the chapel. On them are written, “Thou shalt not”, a blatant allusion to the Ten Commandments of the Bible. The fact that the words chosen to adorn the doors to the church are restrictive in nature, instead of an instructive “Thou shalt”, demonstrates the constrained state that the church puts Blake in. Discouraged by the limiting statement on the doors, the narrator turns to the rest of the Garden in hope of finding “sweet flowers”.
Sadly, all he sees when he turns is a forlorn and gloomy sight, a desolate graveyard, filled with tombstones. In the middle of this graveyard are priests, outreaches of the church, fastening together his “joys and desires” with briars, symbolizing the rules the church weighs upon him, and thorns. These are his final hopes, killed.
Throughout the poem, Blake’s colorful use of imagery and heavy symbolism express his resentment toward the church. He makes obvious how he feels, that it is restrictive in nature and hinders him from expressing his loves, joys, and desires with all the rules and regulations that it places upon him.

| Posted on 2006-01-27 | by Approved Guest