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.