The Deserted Garden by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Poem & Explanation)

 

The Deserted Garden

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

(Poem & Explanation) 

The Deserted Garden

I mind me in the days departed,

How often underneath the sun

With childish bounds I used to run

To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite;

And wheresoe’er had struck the spade,

The greenest grasses Nature laid,

To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,

For no one entered there but I;

The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,

And passed it ne’ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,

And spread their boughs enough about

To keep both sheep and shepherd out,

But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!

I crept beneath the boughs, and found

A circle smooth of mossy ground

Beneath a poplar tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,

Bedropt with roses waxen-white

Well satisfied with dew and light

And careless to be seen.

Long years ago it might befall,

When all the garden flowers were trim,

The grave old gardener prided him

On these the most of all.

Some lady, stately overmuch,

Here moving with a silken noise,

Has blushed beside them at the voice

That likened her to such.

And these, to make a diadem,

She often may have plucked and twined,

Half-smiling as it came to mind

That few would look at them.

Oh, little thought that lady proud,

A child would watch her fair white rose,

When buried lay her whiter brows,

And silk was changed for shroud!—

Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns

For men unlearned and simple phrase),

A child would bring it all its praise

By creeping through the thorns!

To me upon my low moss seat,

Though never a dream the roses sent

Of science or love’s compliment,

I ween they smelt as sweet.

It did not move my grief to see

The trace of human step departed:

Because the garden was deserted,

The blither place for me!

Friends, blame me not ! a narrow ken

Has childhood ‘twixt the sun and sward :

We draw the moral afterward —

We feel the gladness then.

And gladdest hours for me did glide

In silence at the rose-tree wall;

A thrush made gladness musical

Upon the other side.

Nor he nor I did e’er incline

To peck or pluck the blossoms white;

How should I know but roses might

Lead lives as glad as mine.

To make my hermit-home complete,

I brought clear water from the spring

Praised in its own low murmuring, —

And cresses glossy wet.

And so, I thought, my likeness grew

(Without the melancholy tale)

To ‘gentle hermit of the dale’,

And Angelina too.

For oft I read within my nook

Such minstrel stories; till the breeze

Made sounds poetic in the trees, —

And then I shut the book.

If I shut this wherein I write

I hear no more the wind athwart

Those trees,—nor feel that childish heart

Delighting in delight.

My childhood from my life is parted,

My footstep from the moss which drew

Its fairy circle round : anew

The garden is deserted.

Another thrush may there rehearse

The madrigals which sweetest are;

No more for me ! — myself afar

Do sing a sadder verse.

Ah me, ah me ! when erst I lay

In that child’s-nest so greenly wrought,

I laughed unto myself and thought

‘The time will pass away’.

And still I laughed, and did not fear

But that, whene’er was past away

The childish time, some happier play

My womanhood would cheer.

I knew the time would pass away,

And yet, beside the rose-tree wall,

Dear God, how seldom, if at all,

Did I look up to pray !

The time is past; — and now that grows

The cypress high among the trees,

And I behold white sepulchers

As well as the white rose,—

When graver, meeker thoughts are given,

And I have learnt to lift my face,

Reminded how earth’s greenest place

The colour draws from heaven,—

It something saith for earthly pain,

But more for Heavenly promise free,

That I who was, would shrink to be.

That happy child again.

 

‘The Deserted Garden’ was included in the volume titled Miscellaneous Poems published in 1850. It is a romantic lyrical recollection of the lost sweetness, innocence and happiness that is associated with childhood. The garden was the secret place to which she would go as a little girl and spend time thinking about her future.

 

Explanation

The poet remembers the days spent in a garden which was deserted and therefore her sit in it all by herself. She remembers its flower-beds, green lawns and trees. She used to go underneath the branches of trees feeling thrilled at the adventure. In those days ladies who wore grand dresses used to come to the garden. The poet, a child, would look at those stately ladies. She did not feel the difference of rank or power at that time, for her whole interest was in the beauty of the garden. When she looks back in time now as a grown-up person, she thinks of the solace and calm the garden had provided to her. At the loss of childhood and its sweetness, the poet remembers the garden.

The poem’s retreat into childhood is romantic and emotional. The memories of the past bring with them nostalgia, for there is an association of freedom, excitement and thrill with the garden. The openness and greenery of the ‘deserted’ garden gave the girl-child a space where she could read, think and imagine in complete freedom. That the childhood is over makes the nostalgia all the more powerful, for its glory of that time is no more. The note of melancholy that is felt throughout the lyrical evocation of the garden and childhood, make the poem very effective. It is a beautifully simple, sensuous and lyrical poem.