Though not very conversant with MacNeice, I know this poem well. It has always been a favorite of Tim Murphy's, though I think he loved it more for its sound and its clever use of literary allusion than its sense. The enjambed female rhymes and nonce stanzas make this poem especially attractive for anyone who considers alternatives to conventional forms. Despite a considerable amount of metrical substitution, iambs predominate, and the stanzas run in a very definite grove, with primary stresses numbering 3,3,3,3,2,3 in the respective lines of each stanza.
Grave and graceful, "Sunlight in the Garden" uses the techniques of light verse to achieve a serious aim.
Alan Sullivan
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