Garden and Flowers

'The Garden' is the final big image of Burnt Norton. It comes after a very clear reference to love, which is already identified as God, as existing everywhere on the planes of both the physical and the metaphysical in reality and intention. ("Love is itself unmoving; / Only the cause and end of movement, / Timeless, and undesiring") The Garden is described as extended and unending. This garden also has children in it. The previous animal metaphor with the boarhound and the boar implies a generational aspect to creatures in the poem. However, in this garden, the implication is that there are only children. This adds to the endless and timeless note upon which the section finishes. I'm sure an image of the flower children of the 60's is pertinent to this but I think one image is enough.

The lead up to this religious image is also somewhat religious. "Fingers of yew be curled / Down on us? After the kingfishers wing" is the beginning of a passage following the sections describing war and several other images. The yew tree (Link 1 and Link 2, excellent links btw) represents both the tree of life and the tree of death. Found often in graveyards throughout the British Isles, it symbolizes both death in life and life in death as I described in my presentation. "Kingfisher", in my opinion, also happens to be the name of a bird. By saying "Kingfisher", I think what Eliot is really talking about is Jesus performing the act of baptism. Connected with the yew tree, we have the symbol for the simultaneity of death/life as a lead in for the means to achieve eternal life (according to this belief). Following these images, Eliot expands upon the concept of eternal life and his answer to it is to finish the section with his reference to The Garden.

Here are some links regarding the flowers mention in the poem. Rose and Sunflower, Clematis