There is a Garden in Her Face by Thomas Campion and A Song in the Front Yard by Gwendolyn Brooks are similar and different in many ways. The point of view is different, the form is different, and although they are about similar subjects, they each have different ideas regarding the topic. Both poems are metaphoric and shouldn't be taken literally. When the girl in A Song in the Front Yard says, "I've stayed in the front yard all my life. / I want a peek at the back," she doesn't literally mean she's lived in the front yard. It is metaphorical for having lived a sheltered, perfect life and that she wants a chance to experience the more wild and "bad" things in life. Also, when the speaker says, "There is a garden in her face, / where roses and white lilies grow," it is metaphorical for the beauty of the girl where the roses are the red of her lips and the white lilies are the pale of her skin. These poems are very well written and have their similarities and differences. .
First of all, in Gwendolyn Brooks" poem, A Song in the Front Yard, the speaker is the girl in the poem. She speaks about her feelings and life and can say these things from first hand experience. In Thomas Campion's poem There is a Garden in Her Face, the speaker is not who the poem is about. The speaker talks about a girl who he sees and perceives what she is thinking. These are not directly the girl's thoughts; it is second hand experience. The difference between the poems is that Brooks" is in first person, while Campion's is in third person.
Secondly, the form is different. There are three stanzas of equal length in There is a Garden in Her Face while in a Song in the Front Yard there are four stanzas of varying lengths. Campion's poem is much more formally written, repeating the line "till cherry ripe themselves do cry" at the end of each stanza. Campion has a strict end rhyme scheme in an ABABCC pattern.
