The Garden of Love

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, who stood before
And bind with briars my joys & desires.

A garden lost; a place encumbered,
A symbol of vain life doomed;
To be chained within a flower’s bounds,
And be withered, forever entombed.

• William Blake