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It is only in stanza
two that we discover
the narrator knows
this place,
remembering
where the cherries
grew and apples
bright as dogstars
Generating a much
brighter image that
can be compared to
the Garden of Eden,
an allusion that is
then shattered
before its climax
with the words now
there is not.
The only thing that
lingers are these
sour and bitter fruit,
which he calls
Isabella grapes.
Slessor vividly
describes these
grapes, using
irresolute language
such as halfsavage and the
oxymoron of gipsysweet as if he
cannot comprehend
his own feelings
about Isabella the
dead girl, who has
lingered on.
Ending with the line
Kissed here ------ or
killed here ------but
who remembers
now? the rhetorical
question passes the
burden of