The Garden of Love

This poem has been with me since my early 20s. It was first shown to me by David, an older man who was a member of the Anchorhold, a religious community of the Society of St John the Evangelist Haywards Heath. He had taken me under his wing and tried to broaden my horizons. This poem has been in the background for my forty years of ministry. I so did not want to be one of those priest in ‘black gowns’.

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 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 & desires.