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Poet: William Blake
Poem: The Garden Of Love
Volume: Songs of Experience
Year: Published/Written in 1789
Poem of the Day on:
Mar 4 2004
Comment 20 of 20, added on January 10th, 2010 at 12:53 AM.
Two versions?
I've been looking for an explanation as to why there are two versions of this poem floating around, the short and the long. But seeing the confused-seeming comments here, I thought I would add my own. I put this poem to music back in high school, so I'm very familiar with it.
It's generally accepted that the Garden of Love is primarily about Blake's dislike for the church's practices, as has already been stated by other commenters. The two extra stanzas of the long version (two people have added them in the comments already) add a great deal to the poem, making the metaphor a more complex story.
In the first two lines, "I laid me down upon a bank / Where Love lay sleeping," Love is personified. The usual personification of love within a Christian context is Jesus or God (i.e. "He is love"), but whoever Love is, the Garden of Love obviously belongs to him. So what is Love doing exiled from His own garden? Why is He sleeping on a riverbank with weeping coming from the rushes nearby? Remember that baby Moses was found in the rushes, but Love has not been taken in like Moses was. He has been abandoned.
That Blake recognized Love and has now lain with Love on the riverbank indicates that he knows Him in an intimate way. This being from "Songs of Experience," we can see this as a clear reference to his experience of sex. He has now discovered that love can be expressed sexually.
Next, Blake goes "to the heath and the wild, / To the thistles and thorns of the waste." In other words, this is land untamed by humans; a natural part of the original Creation, but not seen by most as a good part of it, or it wouldn't be called a "waste." And the plants in this land tell him that they have been "beguiled, / Driven out, and compelled to the chaste." These plants are commonly considered to be weeds, meaning that they are generally undesirable to the sorts of people who cultivate gardens.
So, these weeds were driven out, but from where? I see two answers to this. Answer 1: Thistles and thorns are what you weed out of your garden, so they have been exiled from the Garden of Love as well. But they are newly exiled. Obviously, Love allowed them there, but now whoever exiled Love has exiled these unwanted things as well. They are told to be chaste, to never love.
Answer 2: Thistles and thorns come from the wasteland, so to be "driven out," they must be driven out of the waste itself. In this scenario, they were driven out into the Garden and then compelled to be chaste, or no longer wild, while there. This answer is supported by the priests' use of tame thorns -- briars -- later in the poem to bind up joys and desires: these briars have been beguiled into the service of chastity.
Now we get to the Garden of Love itself. The first stanza clearly indicates that Blake was extremely familiar with the Garden of Love from his youth. "Where I used to play on the green" is a clear reference to "The Echoing Green" from Blake's "Songs of Innocence," which is about how children playing together on the green is a universal childhood experience tying generations together. In other words, the love that Blake is familiar with is familial love rather than sexual. But now that he has reached adulthood, he finds that love's natural expressions are no longer free and universal, but rather bound by the restrictions of the church. What would be natural and true to the nature of Love and His Garden has been hidden (the gates are shut), forbidden ("Thou shalt not"), and outright destroyed (flowers replaced by graves).
The priests have turned this from a bright, happy garden full of play and beauty into a garden of punishment and death. If the weeds before were undesirable people, the flowers would naturally represent desirable people. However, even they have lost their loveliness and happiness in life, being given only briars and graves in return. This represents how the church forbids people to do pleasurable things in life, telling them to wait instead for the pleasures of death and the rewards of heaven. Perhaps another way to view this is to think of the expression of love as being the center of people's lives, and to deny it to them is to kill off the center of their lives and replace the expression of love with a hope for death. They are living life as if they are already dead.
And what of the personification of Love, exiled from the Garden? Jesus was given a crown of thorns, and Blake's joys and desires were bound up by thorns. This illustrates that the church has betrayed Love, betrayed the very God they were supposed to be serving, by forbidding people an expression of love that God obviously created for them. The priests have cast out the adult expressions of love and beguiled everyone into thinking it was done in the name of Love. But in reality, in casting out part of Love, they have cast out all of Him. Love can no longer be found in this garden. You must go searching for Him where He lies sleeping by the river, abandoned and exiled, hidden by the rushes. He is found in nature and in the free expression of human spirits, not in the hands of Man.
Devin from United States
Comment 19 of 20, added on January 10th, 2009 at 2:34 PM.
I believe this poem is being misinterpreted-primarily because the poem listed is missing the first half. The entirity of this poem includes two stanzas unlisted here. They read as follows:
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.
The sole basis of this poem contrasts the original garden of love with the garden of love the narrator finds later.
The original garden of love was free-anything was possible. Meaning, anybody could love anybody, and any body could love anything. The garden was open to all, without discrimination or biguilding.
The garden of love that the narrator finds later is altered in more than once way. First, the garden is no longer a green pasture open for wandering. It now contains a chapel. The chapel doors are shut, implying that nobody can actually see whats in side. Parallelling this, many evangelical leaders do not allow their followers to view texts of biblical literature, rather they are told by their leader what to believe and what biblical texts supposedly say. Neither can look inside to see for themselves. Second, the fact that thistles and thorns of the waste were biguilded and driven out to the chaste implies that with the implimintation of both the chapel and the pastor and briar that people were expelled from the garden of love. NOT EVERYONE IS ALLOWED TO LOVE in the new garden occupied by the church. Third, the garden once filled with blossoming flowers, love, is now filled with graves and tombstones representing the excommunication of those individuals biguilded and compelled to the chaste. CHASTE is key here-it is defined as refraining from sexual intercourse that is regarded as contrary to morality or religion. Therefore, the graves represent what the garden of love used to be-open. It now can only be used by people who coincide with religious beliefs of the imposed chapel. Fourth, the pastor and briar are binding the narrator's joys and desires. The church is telling people what they can desire.
Analysis of Interpretation-the basis of this poem boils down to church declaring restrictions on love. This poem is an advocate for lesbian gay and bisexual love. The garden of love was created, love IS FOR, EVERYONE. Once religion steps in, however, only certain individuals have the right to love. William Blake was a revolutionary man, and a revolutionary activist.
Taylor
Comment 18 of 20, added on January 24th, 2007 at 2:48 PM.
I am interested in the connection between the Garden (which I beleive could represent Eden and the original ideals of religion) and the imposing chapel. Could it be that Blake sees religion as a means to opposing its own values? I agree strongly with the suggestions that this poem attacks the way in which religion is practiced. To me, it seems Blake wants the reader to realise that religion has been contaminated by humanity.
Sarah from United Kingdom
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I've been looking for an explanation as to why there are two versions of this poem floating around, the short and the long. But seeing the confused-seeming comments here, I thought I would add my own. I put this poem to music back in high school, so I'm very familiar with it.
It's generally accepted that the Garden of Love is primarily about Blake's dislike for the church's practices, as has already been stated by other commenters. The two extra stanzas of the long version (two people have added them in the comments already) add a great deal to the poem, making the metaphor a more complex story.
In the first two lines, "I laid me down upon a bank / Where Love lay sleeping," Love is personified. The usual personification of love within a Christian context is Jesus or God (i.e. "He is love"), but whoever Love is, the Garden of Love obviously belongs to him. So what is Love doing exiled from His own garden? Why is He sleeping on a riverbank with weeping coming from the rushes nearby? Remember that baby Moses was found in the rushes, but Love has not been taken in like Moses was. He has been abandoned.
That Blake recognized Love and has now lain with Love on the riverbank indicates that he knows Him in an intimate way. This being from "Songs of Experience," we can see this as a clear reference to his experience of sex. He has now discovered that love can be expressed sexually.
Next, Blake goes "to the heath and the wild, / To the thistles and thorns of the waste." In other words, this is land untamed by humans; a natural part of the original Creation, but not seen by most as a good part of it, or it wouldn't be called a "waste." And the plants in this land tell him that they have been "beguiled, / Driven out, and compelled to the chaste." These plants are commonly considered to be weeds, meaning that they are generally undesirable to the sorts of people who cultivate gardens.
So, these weeds were driven out, but from where? I see two answers to this. Answer 1: Thistles and thorns are what you weed out of your garden, so they have been exiled from the Garden of Love as well. But they are newly exiled. Obviously, Love allowed them there, but now whoever exiled Love has exiled these unwanted things as well. They are told to be chaste, to never love.
Answer 2: Thistles and thorns come from the wasteland, so to be "driven out," they must be driven out of the waste itself. In this scenario, they were driven out into the Garden and then compelled to be chaste, or no longer wild, while there. This answer is supported by the priests' use of tame thorns -- briars -- later in the poem to bind up joys and desires: these briars have been beguiled into the service of chastity.
Now we get to the Garden of Love itself. The first stanza clearly indicates that Blake was extremely familiar with the Garden of Love from his youth. "Where I used to play on the green" is a clear reference to "The Echoing Green" from Blake's "Songs of Innocence," which is about how children playing together on the green is a universal childhood experience tying generations together. In other words, the love that Blake is familiar with is familial love rather than sexual. But now that he has reached adulthood, he finds that love's natural expressions are no longer free and universal, but rather bound by the restrictions of the church. What would be natural and true to the nature of Love and His Garden has been hidden (the gates are shut), forbidden ("Thou shalt not"), and outright destroyed (flowers replaced by graves).
The priests have turned this from a bright, happy garden full of play and beauty into a garden of punishment and death. If the weeds before were undesirable people, the flowers would naturally represent desirable people. However, even they have lost their loveliness and happiness in life, being given only briars and graves in return. This represents how the church forbids people to do pleasurable things in life, telling them to wait instead for the pleasures of death and the rewards of heaven. Perhaps another way to view this is to think of the expression of love as being the center of people's lives, and to deny it to them is to kill off the center of their lives and replace the expression of love with a hope for death. They are living life as if they are already dead.
And what of the personification of Love, exiled from the Garden? Jesus was given a crown of thorns, and Blake's joys and desires were bound up by thorns. This illustrates that the church has betrayed Love, betrayed the very God they were supposed to be serving, by forbidding people an expression of love that God obviously created for them. The priests have cast out the adult expressions of love and beguiled everyone into thinking it was done in the name of Love. But in reality, in casting out part of Love, they have cast out all of Him. Love can no longer be found in this garden. You must go searching for Him where He lies sleeping by the river, abandoned and exiled, hidden by the rushes. He is found in nature and in the free expression of human spirits, not in the hands of Man.
Devin from United States