Summary

In “The Garden of Love” the speaker goes to the Garden of Love and finds a chapel has been constructed there on the green where he used to play. The chapel gates are closed and there is a note on the door that has “Thou shalt not” written on it (49). The speaker turns toward the garden and finds it filled with graves rather than flowers. Meanwhile, priests in black robes make their rounds through the garden, “binding with briars [his] joys and desires” (49).

In “The Little Vagabond” the speaker addresses his mother, telling her he much prefers the atmosphere of the alehouse to that of the church. Unlike the cold church, the alehouse, he says, is “healthy, and pleasant, and warm” and he feels more purposeful when he is there (50). He goes on to say if the church was like the alehouse, “we...