The Garden of Love

Das Gedicht "The Garden of Love" schrieb William Blake.

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 I 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 turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys and desires.

William Blake, 1757-1827