The Elegant Garden

In the short introduction to "The Sensitive Plant" the reader is told biologists of the late-eighteenth century found the Mimosa pudica particularly fascinating as a bridge between plant and animal. Mary Shelley seems to share this same fascination, and in this poem develops the bridge-like quality of the plant as a sort of entanglement between it and the woman who is the Soul of the garden. The sensitive plant exists as a kind of pineal gland, connecting the woman and the garden. They share a key quality of being self-sustaining when it comes to love, like a perfect conservation of energy. She has “no companion of mortal race” (part 2, line 13), and the hermaphroditic Mimosa pudica is likewise described as “companionless” (part 1, line 12). Similarly, another of Newton's laws is reflected in the phrase “groan for groan” (part 3, line 16) as Shelley describes the dying of the garden in reaction to the death of its godlike caretaker. Drawing out the hidden physics in Shelley's small universe further, the final lines containing a revelation that the garden and the lady never truly died, but only seemed to by our limited perception, illustrates a conservation of momentum- all live on (conclusion, lines 15-24). In addition to their relative wholeness, the woman and the sensitive plant share an elevated kind of consciousness. This plant's dreams contain music (part 1, line 108-109) while the rest of the garden inhabitants' dreams are silent (part 1, line 103); the woman's dreams “were less a slumber than a Paradise” (part 2, line 16).

Questions: What do we make of the spirit or angel that attends the woman? What is the meaning of the line “It was felt like an odour within the sense” (part 1, line 28)?