Can anyone give me any intelligent response to what the poem: garden of proserpine by swinsburne means?

Remember, you dont have to be correct, just give me an intelligent and thought-provoking answer will do...


Here, where the world is quiet;


Here, where all trouble seems


Dead winds' and spent waves' riot


In doubtful dreams of dreams;


I watch the green field growing


For reaping folk and sowing


For harvest-time and mowing,


A sleepy world of streams.





I am tired of tears and laughter,


And men that laugh and weep;


Of what may come hereafter


For men that sow to reap:


I am weary of days and hours,


Blown buds of barren flowers,


Desires and dreams and powers


And everything but sleep.





Here life has death for neighbor,


And far from eye or ear


Wan waves and wet winds labor,


Weak ships and spirits steer;


They drive adrift, and whither


They wot not who make thither;


But no such winds blow hither,


And no such things grow here.





No growth of moor or coppice,


No heather-flower or vine,


But bloomless buds of poppies,


Green grapes of Proserpine,

Can anyone give me any intelligent response to what the poem: garden of proserpine by swinsburne means?
The poem seems to be about finality or death- or maybe the finality of death:


"He too with death shall dwell,


Nor wake with wings in heaven,


____Nor weep for pains in hell;"





The poet basically seems to say that the final step for any life is death and that it ends in deaths cold embrace. There is no after life, no heaven, no hell. It is a lonely, cold place that is devoid of tears and laughter and growth and prosperity.





It is interesting that he uses "Proserpine" in the poem, as she is the Roman goddess life after death or 'rebirth'. Myth has it that when she goes down to the underworld, it is winter. Once she reappears, it is spring once again.





In the poem, however, there is no reappearance of Proserpine. He simply says:





"Pale, beyond porch and portal,


____Crowned with calm leaves, she stands


Who gathers all things mortal


____With cold immortal hands;"





He continues to describe how all things alive eventually die:





"She waits for each and other,


____She waits for all men born;


Forgets the earth her mother,


____The life of fruits and corn;


And spring and seed and swallow


Take wing for her and follow


Where summer song rings hollow


____And flowers are put to scorn."





And instead of continuing to describe the afterlife Prosperina would offer, he gives death a finality in the last line with:





"Then star nor sun shall waken,


____Nor any change of light:


.......


Only the sleep eternal


____In an eternal night."





The concept that death is final is obviously not a new one- especially in poetry. But the interesting thing about this poem in particular is that it was written by a Victorian-era poet and must have been quite controversial at the time as the no life after death theory goes against the belief of most religions (and especially Christianity).
Reply:He's dead!
Reply:sounds like a conscience abyss but isn't that like military intelligence?

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