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.	William Blake/speaker/Sarah Ross/performer Past tense of the verb "to go", implying that the action of the poem has taken place in the speaker's past. Typical style used in first person narration. Preposition expressing what is reached, approached, or touched; expressing what is aimed at: often introducing the indirect object of a verb Adjective called the definite article. a piece of ground, usu. partly grassed and adjoining a private house, used for growing flowers, fruit, or vegetables, and as a place of recreation. prep. connecting a noun with a preceding noun, expressing a wide range of relations including origin, constitutive substance, possession, quality, etc. A word having many connotations and implications and definitions Conjunction joining two clauses. In this case, the second clause is dependent on the first for meaning and could not stand alone. The first person past tense of the verb "to see." The speaker is representing himself as a witness of what follows. Colloquial misuse of an interrog. adj. where the speaker ought to have said "that which" instead of "what" Adverb meaning either "at no time" or functioning as an emphatic negative. Although also the past tense of the verb "to have," here it functions as a past participle used with the verb "to see." With "had," the pluperfect form of the verb "to see," meaning that the action of not seeing occurred previous to the coming to the Garden. Indefinite article, meaning that it is not the only Chapel ever built, and undermining its own self-importance. Brit.a place of worship for nonconformist worship (they are strictly chapel). Possibly in this case meaning Catholic. Describing the past action of the building of the chapel. Also implies that the speaker has been absent from the Garden of Love long enough for the chapel to be built. Probably a colloquial use of the word in. The French language uses "in" literally to mean contained within. Because a "midst" is not a container, there is no way that the chapel can be "in" it according to French grammatical rules. the phrase "in the midst" means "in the middle of" and has developed its own meaning which when deconstructed is lost. Relative pronoun referring to the middle of the Garden of Love Familiar by habit. Translates with infinitives into other languages as the imperfect tense, which refers to continual past actions. Ludere Preposition that implies that an object or action is atop something else, except when used in colloquialisms such as "on the TV" or "on the telephone," neither of which, of course, William Blake would be familiar with. Although often used as an adjective, this time it refers to an open grassy common area such as might be found in a public garden. May also be a reference to "The Ecchoing Green," the poem in the companion volume to the volume that this poem appeared in.
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;	The continuing use of this conjunction gives the poem a unity that transcends line and stanza breaks. However, it made it difficult to write a unified pop song with lines that continue to be connected with "and". Architectural description/value judgement The first three words of almost all the Ten Commandments. Notably, the Christian commandments are not these, but are the two commandments of Christ, phrased as "Love the Lord thy God...and love thy neighbour..." Not as "thou shalt not. Archaic past participle of to write The act of placing the text over the door gives it authority. It also passes judgement on everyone that passes through the door. The door itself is a complex image in that the gates are shut, but there is a door. Christ refers to Himself both as a door and a gate. The commandment "thou shalt not" is therefore placed above Christ by the builders? After being excluded from the chapel by the locked gates, the speaker seeks out love somewhere other than in the Church. To turn is another phrase for repentance, in this case made upside down by the imagery of the poem. Preposition used for the locative case, referring to the speaker's action in turning towards the Garden of Love. Relative pronoun acting as the subject of the subordinate clause. "So" modifies "many" to explain to the reader that not only was there a great number of flowers, but there were a very great number of flowers. In this case, on hopes, referring to the olfactory sense and not to the sense of taste. This use of the perfect tense instead of the pluperfect tense is confusing in that the reader cannot be sure until the next stanza whether the Garden bears many flowers at the time of the speaker's current visit, or at the time when s/he was visiting in the past.
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.	The continuing use of this conjunction gives the poem a unity that transcends line and stanza breaks. However, it made it difficult to write a unified pop song with lines that continue to be connected with "and". Once again the speaker is evoking his or her own witness of the changes that have taken place in the Garden. Again the Garden is characterised as a container. Although this may be due to a peculiarity of the English language, it may be a purposeful action on the part of Blake. The heart is also often characterised as a container. Here the speaker explains his exclamation about the sweet flowers. Instead of living organisms, the chapel-people have replaced the flowers with memorials to death. Tomb-stones resonates with graves and compounds the severity of the actions of the chapel-people. I chose these lines as a bridge to emphasise how love has been replaced by memorials to death...a love is dead, philosophy, perhaps. Not only are the many flowers gone from the Garden, but they have been replaced completely by tomb-stones. This line is an elegiac crying-out by the speaker of the poem for what he has lost, and I tried to capture that in the bridge of the song through repetition and melodic intensity. The people of the chapel are finally named by the speaker. Notably, the title of priest is given only to leaders of the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. The Dissenting churches would not have used this term. By dressing his priests in gowns, Blake is emasculating them. The colour black also intensifies the graveyard experience of the death of Love. An image of the perambulatory priest, walking like an image of Death in a black gown, hunting for a victim. In my experience with Catholic graveyards (eg: in St. Albert, AB), priests do spend time making "rounds" through the graveyard, often in silence. Blake chooses to end his poem with an image of bondage. The speaker of the poem has returned to the childhood paradise of love only to find that it has been appropriated by religion, as soon as he enters into that world, he too is caught up in the bondage and his ability to love is tripped from him. Briars might also be considered thorns...such as the crown of thorns that was given to Christ before His crucifixion. Blake chooses to end his poem with an image of bondage. The speaker of the poem has returned to the childhood paradise of love only to find that it has been appropriated by religion, as soon as he enters into that world, he too is caught up in the bondage and his ability to love is tripped from him.

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