The Garden of Love

“The Garden of Love” has a simple structure and consists of three quatrains. The first two stanzas of the poem follow a simple abcb rhyming scheme and contain a tetrameter. This predictable rhythm reflects the childlike experience of the speaker. However, a change in the rhyme and meter of the last two lines in the third stanza, to a trimeter and an internal rhyme (“gowns” and “rounds,” “briars” and “desires” [Lines 11-12]), adds to the jolt of the shocking and disturbing discovery the speaker makes. The rhythm of the poem therefore echoes the speaker’s realization that the predictability and security of childhood has been replaced by the threatening nature of the priests and their chapel.

The poem contains much assonance (repetition of sounds) and alliteration (repetition of letters at the beginnings of words), and these contribute to its simple and childlike sound and rhythm in the first and second stanzas. The soft sounds of the “w” in “went,” “saw,” “what,” “was,” “where,” and “were” (Lines 1-5, 9-11), in addition to the open, flowing vowel sounds of /o/ in “flowers” and “bore” (Lines 8, 10) add to the pleasant and welcoming image of