Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
-- Speaker (Line 7)

Importance: This line uses personification to create a sense that the garden itself is asleep — a dormant deity of the land. Opium, a drug extracted from poppies, has a strong sedative quality; this enhances the overall dreamlike quality of the scene. It also creates the illusion that the garden itself may exist only in dreams, blurring the line between the real and the fantastic.

Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
-- Speaker (Line 10)

Importance: Alyssum is a common garden flower, but its name also comes from Greek and means “without madness” or “against madness”. By positioning them at the speaker’s feet, the poem gives the flowers a grounded, earthly quality. This suggests that the flowers root the speaker in place and keep them from spinning off into the world of dreams.

Then you come
-- Speaker (Line 17)

Importance: This line is the shortest of the poem, only...