The Garden of Love

“The Garden of Love” is a lyric poem by English poet William Blake, who is often considered one of the Romantic poets. The poem was first published in 1789 as part of his most famous collection, Songs of Innocence and Experience. During his lifetime, Blake’s recognition as an artist was much greater than as a poet. However, posthumous interest in his work grew and his poems such as “The Garden Of Love” have become key works of the English canon. In his Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake contrasts the stifling and negative nature of organized religion with true spiritual love of humankind and of the natural world, a key theme of the Romantic movement.

“The Garden of Love” is one of the Songs of Experience. Within the poem, Blake offers the image of a garden, green and full of flowers, where the writer played as an innocent and loving child. He then shows the garden’s transformation into a dark, forbidding place of religion, with an unwelcoming chapel, tombstones, and priests walking in circles.

Poet Biography

William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in Soho, London. He was the third of seven children, two of whom died as infants. He was baptized in an Anglican church and remained a committed Christian all his life, despite being critical of the Church of England and all forms of organized religion.

Blake attended school until the age of 10 and was thereafter schooled at home by his mother. He was sent to drawing classes by his parents, who recognized his artistic talents when he copied drawings of Greek antiquities that his parents had bought for him. He also read widely, including much classical poetry.

Blake was apprenticed at 15 to an engraver and became a professional at the age of 21. He worked in the Gothic churches of London. In Westminster Abbey, he claimed he experienced visions of Christ and his Apostles. These visions would continue throughout his lifetime and influence his thought and work to a great extent. Blake claimed that on his brother Robert’s death, in 1787, he saw his spirit leave his body. He said that Robert later visited him in dreams and taught him the printing method he later used.

Blake studied at the Royal Academy of Art for a short time from 1779 and, while there, became influenced by classical artists such as Michelangelo. In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, whom he taught to read, write, and engrave. The couple remained devoted throughout their lives, though they had no children.

Blake’s first collection of poems, “Poetical Sketches,” was printed in 1783. A year later, he opened a print shop with a former colleague. Their publications included political, philosophical, and theological texts, some of which Blake illustrated. He also drew his own poems along with their corresponding illustrations on copper. He then etched, printed, and painted in watercolor copies of these illuminated manuscripts for sale. He made a meagre living from these publications.

The prolific Blake continued to write and illustrate throughout his life, despite never achieving fame or fortune. His wide reading and social circle brought him into contact with the ideas of many radical thinkers of his time, including Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. He was influenced by the ideas behind the French and American revolutions and declared himself against the English monarchy and 18th-century political and social tyranny in all its forms. Many of his poems express his political and non-conformist views, including “America, a Prophecy” (1793) and “Vison of the Daughters of Albion” (1793). Blake was accused eventually of sedition, but he was acquitted. He continued, however, to fear persecution for his views.

Blake’s works combines religious symbolism, mysticism, and social commentary in both visual and verbal form. The most famous of his many poems include “The Tyger,” “The Lamb,” and “Milton.” “Jerusalem” is often considered his greatest and most representative work, with its 100 illuminated plates and its theme of the fall of man, Britain, or the Western world as a whole.

Blake continued to write and illustrate until his death in 1827. He died in poverty, appreciated only by a small number of his contemporaries, while others thought he had a mental health condition. Blake and his work did not achieve recognition until his biography appeared in the 1860s. He then became popular with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, including with Rossetti and Swinburne. Modernist writers and artists such as Yeats took inspiration from Blake’s ideas, and his influence reached the Beat poets of the 1960s such as Huxley and Ginsberg. Modern writers such as Philip Pullman have also drawn on Blake in their works.

Poem Text

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 turn’d to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore.

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.

Blake, William. “The Garden of Love.” 1789. The Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The poem begins with the lyric speaker, “I”, visiting the “Garden of Love” (Line 1). The speaker refers to the fact that the garden has undergone a huge change: “I saw what I never had seen.” The speaker sees a “Chapel” built in the middle (“midst”) of the garden (Line 3), in exactly the spot where they used to play.

In the second stanza, the poet describes the gates of the chapel as shut, and the words “Thou shalt not” (Line 6) written over the door.

The third and final stanza describes the “graves” and “tomb-stones” that have replaced the flowers. There are also priests, dressed in black, walking in circles or on a prescribed route, doing “their rounds” (Line 11) of the garden. The final line says that these priests affect the speaker by “binding with briars, my joys & desires” (Line 12).