The Garden of Love

I laid me down upon a bank,   Where Love lay sleeping;

I heard among the rushes dank   Weeping, weeping. Then I went to the heath and the wild,   To the thistles and thorns of the waste;

And they told me how they were beguiled,   Driven out, and compelled to the chaste. I went to the Garden of Love,   And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,   Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut   And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love   That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves,   And tombstones where flowers should be;

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,   And binding with briars my joys and desires.