William Blake - The Garden of Love - Summary & Analysis

 About Author - 

William Blake was an English poet, born in London in. He was very influenced by the bible from his childhood. He taught his wife to read and write, and also his engraving job. He was also influenced by the political event of his times like the American Revolution (1775) & the French Revolution (1794).

Blake's well-known poetry collections are the Song of Experience (1794) & the Song of Innocence (1789).

The theme of the Poem- 

The Garden of Love is a romantic poem. In the 18th century, with the rise of Romantic poetry in English literature, poets such as Dryden, Pope, and Swift concentrated on public themes often satirizing the politics, morals, and manners of the time. Poetry now had a theme of personal feeling and a greater sensitivity to nature and the countryside. 

The Garden of Love - Line-by-Line Analysis - 

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.

  

  In the first stanza of the poem, the poet fixates on a comparison between two times. He went to the Garden of Love and was shocked or amused with what he saw there, a sight he had never seen before.

  The poet further clarifies what he saw, "A Chapel built in the midst". A Church was now standing in the middle of the garden he used to play. The Church feels like an alien structure, an imposter in Blake's childhood Garden of Love. 

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore. 

    In the second stanza, the poet narrates that the gates of the chapel are shut and a notice was written on the door that you shall not... (Thou shalt not). The poet here refers to the rules and restrictions now imposed and even entry to his favorite place is prohibited. So the poet turns to look at whatever was left of his Garden of Love which once had many sweet blooming flowers. 

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

In the last stanza, the poet depicts the other empty places of the Garden of love that is now filled with graves. There are tombstones in the places where flowers should be. Priests are walking their rounds in black gowns. The poet uses morbid words such as graves, tomb-stones & black gowns to represent and signal the death of his childhood and to show the incessant efforts of the adult world to bind his joys and desires with briars (prickly shrubs).