"On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands"
MacNeice uses repetition, specifically anaphora, to surround the reader in the feeling of a snowy day. The author uses a very direct imagery, to overwhelm the reader with the sensations. By referring to the reader's body parts instead of merely just the sensation, the sensation becomes stronger. In fact, because MacNeice refers to several body parts, the reader is more engrossed and feels completely immersed in the scene, instead of just partially feeling something for the poem. MacNeice effectively uses anaphora and imagery to help immerse the reader into his poetic world.
"We cannot cage the minute/Within its nets of gold"
Here, we see one of the various themes of "Sunlight on the Garden"; no man can control time. Time stops for nobody and nothing, not for good events and not for bad, either. In this stanza, sunlight is depicted as something corrupted by time, although later in the poem, it is described as something once beautiful. "Its nets of gold" likely refers to how much we depend on the sun. It traps us in our need, and its beauty. As demonstrated in the quote, time is an uncontrollable entity and the sun is a beautiful friend.
"I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me"
Entrapment is a common threat; not physically, but mentally. Society chooses your path for you in many ways, deciding that everybody must go to school, graduate, then work a boring job for meager pay (at least, in today's world). There is very little freedom to diverge from this path, doing so resulting in exile. "Strong drugs" can refer to many temptations, such as alcohol, actual drugs, some foods, and more. These things can limit a person's ability to free themselves from the doldrums of daily life; in other words, "doping" people making it impossible to think or escape.
