The Manor Garden
The Manor Garden - meaning Summary
Decline and Inheritance
The poem portrays a garden and landscape in decline as a metaphor for personal and familial inheritance. Images of decay, ritual, and animal life frame an approaching, ominous day. The speaker registers history’s burdens—loss, suicide, and emotional blankness—alongside small natural details that gather toward an uneasy birth. The tone mixes resignation and watchfulness, signaling that continuity passes through suffering and ambiguous renewal.
Read Complete AnalysesThe fountains are dry and the roses over. Incense of death. Your day approaches. The pears fatten like little buddhas. A blue mist is dragging the lake. You move through the era of fishes, The smug centuries of the pig- Head, toe and finger Come clear of the shadow. History Nourishes these broken flutings, These crowns of acanthus, And the crow settles her garments. You inherit white heather, a bee's wing, Two suicides, the family wolves, Hours of blankness. Some hard stars Already yellow the heavens. The spider on its own string Crosses the lake. The worms Quit their usual habitations. The small birds converge, converge With their gifts to a difficult borning.
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