Summary and Analysis of “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens”

The First Stanza:

In this lone, open glade I lie,

Screen’d by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand!

“Lines Written in Kensington Gardens” by Matthew Arnold describes a speaker’s experience

within the confines of Kensington Gardens in London, England.

The poem begins with the speaker describing how he is lying in the open glade, or path of the
treeless forest. In the first stanza, the speaker describes how he is lying in an “open glade.”
This is a reference to a wide-open space in a forest. The space is in a ring of trees. Their
“boughs” or large branches are on either side of him. This place is “deep” in the boughs of the
forest. He is surrounded by trees on all sides, isolated from the larger world. In the next
stanzas, the reader is reminded that he is not in the wilderness but in the gardens of
Kensington in London. There is a city on all sides and children who run through the forest. He
is not alone.

The Second Stanza:

Birds here make song, each bird has his,

Across the girdling city’s hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

In the next two lines in the second stanza (Birds here make song, each bird has his,/Across the
girdling city’s hum.), it turns out that he is not alone. Nor is he as far from the city as the first
stanza made it seem. In his glade, birds of every variety come and sing their individual songs.
The birds are personified and all referred to as male. They are given the agency to craft their
songs in this glade. Additionally, the speaker states that they’ve come from the “girdling
city’s hum. The speaker is not out in the countryside or the wild but within the gardens of
Kensington in London. The birds he mentions have flown in from the city that encloses the
garden. This change of scene has allowed them to sing. In the next two lines ( How green
under the boughs it is!/How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!), the speaker exclaims
over how green it is “under the boughs.” He is excited by the pristine nature of the scene and
moved by the “sheep-cries” in the distance.

The Third Stanza:

Sometimes a child will cross the glade

To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day’s employ.

In the next stanza of ‘Lines Written in Kensington Gardens’, the nature of the scene is further
illuminated. The speaker is most certainly not alone. He notes that every once in a while a
“child will cross” the glade he is relaxing in and bring his “nurse his broken toy.” This is a
place that attracts different types of people. Each takes something different from the gardens.

In the next two lines, he returns to the non-human presence in the scene. There are thrushes
that “flit” over his head. One in particular he notes as being “Deep in her…day’s employ.”
Her actions are said to be “unknown.” It is unclear whether they are just unclear to the
speaker or to the bird as well.

The human-made elements of his environment do not bother him though. He is able to take as
much from this curated landscape as he would from one that is less altered by human hands.
The speaker continues to return to the birds throughout this piece. He is interested in their
comings and goings and the general history of the landscape.

The Fourth Stanza:

Here at my feet what wonders pass,

What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirr’d forest, fresh and clear.

In the fourth stanza of ‘Lines Written in Kensington Gardens’, the speaker looks down at his
own feet. He is entranced by the thought of every living creature that “pass[es]” and has
passed, by him. The activity of the gardens feels “endless.” This refers to both the animal and
human life. There is a long history within this place and he is tapping into that. One way he
senses the past and present is through the smells in the air. He can detect “daisies” and
“fragrant grass.” The air of the “forest” is “fresh and clear.” The speaker takes the time to
analyze the ground at his feet and think about all the creatures, human and non-human who
have moved through there. One important message or theme of this piece is that of a clear and
unadulterated appreciation for nature. It does not matter to the speaker that he is within the
city limits in a curated human-made environment, he finds the experience valuable and
beautiful.

The Fifth Stanza:

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod

Where the tired angler lies, stretch’d out,
And, eased of basket and of rod,
Counts his day’s spoil, the spotted trout.
In the next stanza, he goes on to describe the land and how another, an “angler,” or fisherman,
interacts with it. He is lying on the fresh “mountain-sod.” Next to him, there is a “basket
and…rod.” With these, he fishes for trout and then stops to count his “day’s spoil.” It is clear
he was successful in his endeavour. This gives the landscape a sense of plenty. The waters are
full of fish and the trees full of birds.

The Sixth Stanza:

In the huge world, which roars hard by,

Be others happy if they can!
But in my helpless cradle I
Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

The sixth stanza brings the narrative back to the speaker’s own experience. He is still
bragging on the gardens and the way that he is able escape from the world within them. The
“huge world” is described as “roar[ing] hard by” him. He wishes the “others” who are out
there in it well. He hopes they are happy, if they can be. The speaker knows what the rest of
the world is like and has come to realization that where he is better than anywhere else in the
city. He has found himself a “helpless cradle” that is so beautiful it is as if the god “Pan”
breathed on him. This is a reference to the Greek god Pan, known as the god of rural nature
and usually depicted playing a seven-piece flute.

The Seventh Stanza:

I, on men’s impious uproar hurl’d,

Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave.

Often, the speaker states, he despairs of the state of society. He listens to the men “rave” or
speak crazily, and knows that “peace has left the upper world.” It is as if everyone has lost
their purpose and now there is nowhere one can go to find respite. Nowhere that is, except for
“the grave.” Death sometimes seems like the only solution to his problems. It is the drastic
last place to search for relief.

The Eighth Stanza:

Yet here is peace for ever new!

When I who watch them am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Luckily for the speaker though, what he has stated in the last stanza is not the full truth. Now
that he has found the “open glade” he knows death is not the only answer to his problems.
“Here,” he states, is “peace for ever new!” He will always be able to find this sense of
relaxation and separation from the city in Kensington Gardens. It will be there forever, in one
form or another. He is not ignorant of the fact that the land and its inhabitants are going to
change. Everyday things shift from morning to night. These changes are quiet though. There
is nothing of the uproarious nature of the city he is used to.

The Ninth Stanza:

Then to their happy rest they pass!

The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

In the ninth stanza of ‘Lines Written in Kensington Gardens’, the speaker expands on the
changes that happen in the gardens. He is speaking on the coming of the night. First, he states
that all things, go to their “happy rest” at the end of the day. This includes the flowers which
“upclose,” and the bird which are “fed.” Everything and everyone is safe within their different
parts of the garden. He also speaks on the child who was referenced in the third stanza. He is
now “sleep[ing] warmly in his bed.” It seems his time in the garden did him good as well.
Night is not a negative phenomenon in this situation. Darkness is not something to fear as it
might be in another part of the city.

The Tenth Stanza:

Calm soul of all things! make it mine

To feel, amid the city’s jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

After speaking on the different elements of the garden and the way they go so calmly through
life and into the day, he asks that the same be given to him. He desires the same “Calm soul”
that permeates “all things.” It is his hope that he can take the peace found in the garden back
into the “city’s jar.” Perhaps it will improve his experience in the huge roaring world. He
believes the peace of the garden to be so powerful because it was not created by man. It is the
result of a higher power, thereby man “cannot mar” it, or change/disrupt it.

The Eleventh Stanza:

The will to neither strive nor cry,

The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.
In the final quatrain of ‘Lines Written in Kensington Gardens’, the speaker concludes his
description of the garden with a plea for a better life. He is seeking out a new way of being,
separate from the morally corrupt world he comes from. It is based on a willingness to live
without striving or crying. His world would be made up of the feelings of others and the
desire to give back to them his own emotions. These lines are an impassioned request to his
listener, perhaps the garden itself or the higher power which formed it. He needs the “Calm”
of the place to take him over and carry him forward in the world. The last lines ask they he
does not die “Before [he has] begun to live.” The garden has imbued him with a new outlook
on life. He knows now that the life he was living before was unreal. He is more than willing to
embark on a new one.

As ‘Lines Written in Kensington Gardens’ continues the speaker begins to fantasize about
taking the calm of the gardens back into his real life. There is nothing but raving men in the
city and he does not want to hear or become one of them. Due to the nature of the city, he
states that he has often thought that there was no true peace to be found in life. It was only
death that could bring one any measure of calm.

Now that he has spent time in the garden he knows this isn’t the case. By the end of the poem,
he is pleading with the higher power which created the garden to allow him to bring the
“Calm soul” of living things back to his city life.

The Form of the Poem:

“Lines Written in Kensington Gardens” by Matthew Arnold is an eleven stanza poem that is
separated into sets of four lines, or quatrains. Arnold has chosen to conform the lines to a
consistent rhyme scheme. It follows the pattern of abab cdcd, alternating as he saw fit from
stanza to stanza. A reader should also take note of the instances of repetition in this piece.
There are a number of stanzas where two or more of the lines begin with the same word, such
as in stanza two (lines three and four) and stanza nine (lines two, three, and four).

Themes:

One distinct theme of this piece is the elevation of nature over city life. The speaker places a
great emphasis on his appreciation for the natural world, even that within the confines of a
garden. He frequently praises the simple lives of the birds and marvels over the history of the
ground.