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