The Garden of Love
I laid me down upon a bank,Where Love lay sleeping;I heard among the rushes dankWeeping, 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 shutAnd "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;So I turned to the Garden of LoveThat 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.
Words in this poem
- dank n.
- Moisture; humidity; water.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Garden of Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, The Garden of Love, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/the-garden-of-love.html, id L02015.
Form and metre
The Garden of Love is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The commonest rhyme scheme is ABAB, in 2 of the 5 stanzas; the rest vary or could not be confirmed. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, as Wikipedia: The Garden of Love (poem) has it. 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 15% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB bankA · sleepingB · dankA · weepingB
- 2 ABAB wildA · wasteB · beguiledA · chasteB
- 3 -A-A love · seenA · midst · greenA
- 4 -A-A shut · doorA · love · boreA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I laid me down upon a bank, | 8 | ········ |
| Where Love lay sleeping; | 5 | ···/˘ |
| I heard among the rushes dank | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Weeping, weeping. | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Then I went to the heath and the wild, | 9 | ········· |
| To the thistles and thorns of the waste; | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| And they told me how they were beguiled, | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| Driven out, and compelled to the chaste. | 8 | /··˘/··· |
| I went to the Garden of Love, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| And saw what I never had seen; | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| A Chapel was built in the midst, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Where I used to play on the green. | 8 | ········ |
| And the gates of this Chapel were shut | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door; | 8 | ········ |
| So I turned to the Garden of Love | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| That so many sweet flowers bore. | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| And I saw it was filled with graves, | 8 | ········ |
| And tombstones where flowers should be; | 8 | ·/··/˘·· |
| And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| And binding with briars my joys and desires. | 10 | ·/˘·/···˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.