The Greek and Roman festivals honoring her and her mother, Ceres, emphasized Proserpine's return to the upper world in spring.
"[4] Swinburne once announced that his poetic theory "insists upon the uninhibited exploration of all issues and experiences relevant to comprehensively prophetic treatment of the human condition".
[5] In Garden of Proserpine, we see elements of aestheticism and this applied poetic theory in the fact that it works to challenge Christianity and Pagan religions.
It is said to symbolize "the brief total pause of passion and thought after tempestuous pleasures when the spirit, without fear or hope of good things or evil, hungers and thirsts only after the perfect sleep".
This poem celebrates the finality of death and the nothingness that lies beyond Persephone's welcoming arms, making a stark contrast to the beliefs of leading religions during this time.
In a contradicting book called "Persephone Rises, 1860-1927" by Margot Kathleen Louis, she presents that not everyone thought the same as Morley did about Swinburne and the poem.
"[6] Martha Hale Shackford states in her article "Swinburne and Delavigne"(1918), that his poem has "long been a favorite, for its subtle cadences have elusive, indefinable melody, and the dim beauty of Proserpine's realm is a masterpiece of descriptive art.
The poem serves as an inspiration for and is quoted in Frank Belknap Long's short story "Step into My Garden", published in August 1942 in the pulp magazine Unknown Worlds.
The poem is quoted at the end of episode 2 of season 3 of Netflix's adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
This poem is also quoted by Major Jonathan Eliot (Adam West) and Audra Barkley (Linda Evans) in the first episode ("Silent Battle") of the fourth season of the TV series The Big Valley.
In 1899, the young English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams put to music several poems, for soprano, chorus and full orchestra, into a 25-minute piece 'The Garden of Proserpine', work that had to wait 112 years for a public performance.