Jorge Luis Borges

Adam Cast Forth

Adam Cast Forth - meaning Summary

Memory of a Lost Garden

The poem presents a speaker who, cast as Adam, wonders whether Eden was a real garden or a dreamed illusion. He recalls a fading but vivid memory of paradise and accepts life on earth as punishment amid human conflict. The tone shifts from doubt to quiet consolation: the speaker values having briefly known the Garden’s living joy, even if only for a day. The poem centers on exile, the instability of memory, and the way a single intense experience can redeem a lifetime of hardship.

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Was there a Garden or was the Garden a dream? Amid the fleeting light, I have slowed myself and queried, almost for consolation, if the bygone period over which this Adam, wretched now, once reigned supreme, Might not have been just a magical illusion of that God I dreamed. Already it's imprecise in my memory, the clear Paradise, but I know it exists, in flower and profusion, Although not for me. My punishment for life is the stubborn earth with the incestuous strife of Cains and Abels and their brood; I shall not await pardon. Yet, it's much to have loved, to have known true joy, to have had — if only for just one day — the experience of touching the living Garden.

William Beal
William Beal February 20. 2024

This story good but it aint all dat

I love this poem
I love this poem February 20. 2024

Hi there

8/2200 - 0