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''The Sunlight on the Garden'' is a 24-line poem by Louis MacNeice. It was written in late 1936 and was entitled ''Song'' at its first appearance in print, in The Listener magazine, January 1937.〔Jon Stallworthy: ''Louis MacNeice''. London: Faber and Faber, 1995. Paperback edition 1996, p. 200.〕 It was first published in book form as the third poem in MacNeice's poetry collection The Earth Compels (1938). The poem explores themes of time and loss, along with anxiety about the darkening political situation in Europe following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. It is one of the best known and most anthologized of MacNeice's short poems. George Macbeth describes it as "one of MacNeice's saddest and most beautiful lyrics".〔George Macbeth (ed.): ''Poetry 1900 to 1975''. Longman, 1979.〕 ==Biographical background== According to Jon Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice wrote ''The Sunlight on the Garden'' as a "love-song" for his first wife, Mary Ezra, shortly after their divorce was finalised in November 1936.〔Jon Stallworthy: ''Louis MacNeice'', p. 196 and Notes.〕 Mary had left MacNeice for Charles Katzman in November 1935, and she followed Katzman to America early the next year. MacNeice was initially "devastated".〔Jon Stallworthy: ''Louis MacNeice'', p. 172.〕 However, by the time the divorce was finalised, MacNeice was able to contemplate the end of his marriage with acceptance (as in the first stanza of ''The Sunlight on the Garden'') and to remember his time with Mary with gratitude (as in the last stanza). At the same time that MacNeice wrote ''The Sunlight on the Garden'' he was collaborating with W. H. Auden on Letters from Iceland, and in ''Last Will and Testament'' from ''Letters from Iceland'' MacNeice shows a similar spirit of generosity towards Mary: "Lastly to Mary living in a remote Country I leave whatever she would remember Of hers and mine before she took that boat, Such memories not being necessarily lumber And may no chance, unless she wills, delete them And may her hours be gold and without number."〔W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice: ''Letters from Iceland''. Faber and Faber, 1937, p. 238.〕 On 6 November 1936, four days after the divorce was finalised, MacNeice moved into a flat at 4 Keats Grove, Hampstead, London. (The previous occupant of the flat was the poet and critic Geoffrey Grigson, and the flat was just fifty yards along the road from Keats House, the house once occupied by the poet John Keats). ''The Sunlight on the Garden'' was written while MacNeice was living at 4a Keats Grove, and as Jon Stallworthy notes, 4a was a 'garden flat'; "the three principal rooms of the flat faced south and, even in November, were lit by the low sun striking through the branches of two large sycamores at the back of the garden.".〔Jon Stallworthy: ''Louis MacNeice'', p. 197.〕 Stallworthy associates ''The Sunlight on the Garden'' with the garden of 4 Keats Grove and other gardens MacNeice had known, going back to the garden at Carrickfergus Rectory where MacNeice had spent his childhood. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Sunlight on the Garden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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