The Garden of Love

A quick analysis of “The Garden of Love” reveals the following: “The green” (Line 4) refers to the idea of the village green, the grassy area in the middle of a village where social events like festivals took place, which was a common area for free public use. Children would have played safely and innocently in such a spot. In addition, traditionally, churches and chapels in England have gardens around them, which may be tended or left to grow wild. These church gardens also contain the burial grounds for the local population, but there are often still empty areas.

The three words “Thou shalt not” (Line 6) in the second stanza are the beginning of several of the Ten Commandments found in the Christian Old Testament, such as “Thou shalt not kill.” They are moral imperatives, meaning, “You must not.” The speaker turns away from the door, toward the garden, but finds that it no longer contains the “sweet flowers” that it previously “bore” or contained (Line 8).

In the final stanza, the speaker watches helplessly as the priests bind[…] with briars, my joys & desires” (Line 12), meaning that they are tying up or restricting the speaker’s natural urges and happiness with sharp, thorny branches of briar, a weed that grows in the English countryside.