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.