The garden of desire — Story, Setting & Ideas

Shifts in Address and Tone

The speaker's relationship to the monk is not static. Early sonnets alternate between surrender and resistance: in Sonnet II, she recalls his wooing with soft Spanish speech, but in Sonnet III she insists she left him despite passion's grip. Later, in Sonnet L, she pleads, "O let me be a child to you to-night!"—a stark contrast to the defiant tone of "No! No! I told you once, twice, thrice." These shifts are not explained by plot but by the speaker's changing emotional state. The sonnet form itself, with its volta, often mirrors these reversals: a turn from memory to present longing, or from command to plea. Underwood uses the structure to dramatize inner conflict rather than narrative progression.

Sensory Details and Cultural Markers

Underwood grounds the speaker's desire in specific sensory details. Kisses "stung like flame" (Sonnet I); Spanish speech is described as "soft vowels" (Sonnet II); the monk's eyes are compared to "Couleur tabac d'Espagne" and "Couleur topaz d'Espagne" (Sonnet XLVII). Moorish scents and the Saraband dance appear in Sonnet XLVI. These details are not merely decorative—they anchor the speaker's longing in a particular cultural imaginary of Spain as passionate, exotic, and southern. The contrast with the speaker's own northern origins is explicit: "In mine I see the north which snowfields mar" (Sonnet XLVIII). This opposition between cold restraint and warm sensuality recurs throughout the excerpts, shaping the speaker's self-awareness.

Pace and the Sonnet's Volta

The pace of the sequence varies with the speaker's emotional intensity. In Sonnet I, the opening lines rush forward: "I hastened homeward through the twilight lone / While on my lips your kisses stung like flame." The enjambment and short clauses create urgency. Later sonnets slow, as in Sonnet LII, which begins with a contemplative gaze: "I look out toward the gray Missouri Hills." The volta, or turn, in many sonnets marks a change in pace: in Sonnet III, the turn from memory to the present plea—"Outside your door keep me not waiting, Dear!"—suddenly shifts from narrative to direct address. Underwood uses these structural features to control tempo, making the reader feel the speaker's fluctuating composure.

Readers attentive to the sonnet's formal constraints will notice how Underwood exploits the volta to pivot between moods. The sequence rewards attention to recurring imagery—eyes, hands, speech—and to the speaker's self-consciousness about her own voice. The excerpts suggest a work that is less a story than a series of emotional snapshots, each sonnet a distinct moment of desire, doubt, or memory.

I keep thinking about that old Underwood sequence, how the monk’s voice can’t decide between yielding and holding back. It made me remember this 17th-century gathering—Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets Being a Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, of Several Eminent Authors. — Background and Themes—where that same ache flickers between verses, like catching a sigh in someone else’s hallway. They stayed with me.