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.