{"id":2973,"date":"2011-02-01T03:53:11","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T03:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/?p=2973"},"modified":"2017-09-21T18:57:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T18:57:07","slug":"the-garden-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/the-garden-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"The Garden of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From<\/strong>: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience<\/em> (1794) by William Blake<\/p>\n

I went to the Garden of Love,
\nAnd saw what I never had seen:
\nA Kingdom Hall built in the midst,
\nWhere I used to play on the green.<\/p>\n

And the gates of this building were shut
\nAnd ‘Thou shalt not,’ writ over the door;
\nSo I turned to the Garden of Love
\nThat so many sweet flowers bore.<\/p>\n

And I saw it was filled with graves,
\nAnd tombstones where flowers should be;
\nElders in black gowns were walking their rounds,
\nAnd binding with briars my joys and desires.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

A little girl I spied me there
\nwho sang sad songs of woe and death
\nand shivered in the fetid gloom
\nand struggled for her every breath.<\/p>\n

“Come away and play with me!
\nAway from bogus rules and lies
\nwe’ll journey through this flowering world
\nwhere light shines through unfettered skies!”<\/p>\n

Then grieved to see I’d called in vain.
\nShe turned away in sad lament:
\n“If false or true, I cannot go with you.
\nI don’t know how to play; just ‘listen and obey<\/em>.'”<\/p>\n

(Slightly altered & with additional verses by Steve McRoberts<\/em>)
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (1794) by William Blake I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Kingdom Hall built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this building were shut And ‘Thou shalt not,’ writ over … Continue reading “The Garden of Love”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3vZ6t-LX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2981,"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions\/2981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smmcroberts.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}