My first time reading this poem I was a bit distracted by the way Swinburne plays with words and sounds, but after reading the poem a couple of more times I grew to appreciate it.
At first glance one might think that the poem revolves around death. The tittle of the poem is after all "A Forsaken Garden," and the closing lines read, " As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,/Death lies dead."Moreover, the poem focuses on all that is forsaken in "the blossom less bed," where not a step was taken," Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not." The poem, however, is more dedicated to love. I interpreted Swinburne's perspective on love to be more peaceful than it is somber. Well, perhaps, peaceful might not be the best word to describe the poem, but there is evident stillness throughout the poem, and it made me think of the emptiness that is associated with heartbreak.
The roses are an obvious symbol of love in this poem, and much like love they wither. Swinburne was being realistic. With this in mind, I once hear someone say "you never stop loving people you just learn to live without them," and this clicked. Eventually the pain fades away. Similarly, when Swinburne states, "Death lies dead," I interpreted this as a form of acceptance that the emptiness or "death" will die, it will fade, and therefore the stillness is only a momentary transcendence.
At first glance one might think that the poem revolves around death. The tittle of the poem is after all "A Forsaken Garden," and the closing lines read, " As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,/Death lies dead."Moreover, the poem focuses on all that is forsaken in "the blossom less bed," where not a step was taken," Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not." The poem, however, is more dedicated to love. I interpreted Swinburne's perspective on love to be more peaceful than it is somber. Well, perhaps, peaceful might not be the best word to describe the poem, but there is evident stillness throughout the poem, and it made me think of the emptiness that is associated with heartbreak.
The roses are an obvious symbol of love in this poem, and much like love they wither. Swinburne was being realistic. With this in mind, I once hear someone say "you never stop loving people you just learn to live without them," and this clicked. Eventually the pain fades away. Similarly, when Swinburne states, "Death lies dead," I interpreted this as a form of acceptance that the emptiness or "death" will die, it will fade, and therefore the stillness is only a momentary transcendence.
So are you saying that the garden itself represents a forsaken/dead love? Because that's how I read the poem, especially with the lines like "All are one now, roses and lovers/ Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the seas." I agree with your reading about the poem being more focused on love in the end rather than death and the last lines about the emptiness dying, although I have a couple of questions. After Death is dead, what happens? Is the author trying to imply some sort of resurrection or is it like in the Sensitive Plant where the energy keeps on flowing? Or does something else happen?
ReplyDeleteI think that rather the poem being solely about Love or solely about Death, it is about the inextricable links between them; the garden represents the cycle of the two as both fertile breeding ground and where things go to lie still, and the sea is the vast and deep emptiness that surrounds all life forms and emotions. In the words of Walt Whitman (that I remind myself of quite frequently), "All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,/ And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier." Death is not the end, nor is the loss of Love, but they are both constants that humans work to either achieve or avoid. They cannot be separated from the natural world, and human interference only goes so far.
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