Sorry if this has been brought up before but I couldn't find anything on it: I keep finding two versions of The Garden of Love by Blake. The first one I ever saw was only three verses or stanzas I don't know. I liked it quite a lot. So I went to look for it so I could print it out and I found a version with two more verses at the beginning. What is up with that? I like it better without the two verses at the beginning but it would be lame for me not o have them in thee if indeed they belong. Thanks for any help.

The Garden of Love
---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 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 turned to the Garden of Love
That 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.

Les



Post Edited (01-26-05 04:15)

Thanks for replying. I take it to mean that it is correct to have those other two verses at the beginning. But then I there's a lot like these:

[www.online-literature.com]

[alt.venus.co.uk]

[www.poetryconnection.net]

And then I found this one too:

[www.bestlovepoems.net]

What is up with there being so many mistakes?

Huh? Those I laid me down upon a bank two stanzas are from his First Series, according to my Portable Blake. This is the right one, I think:

[www.english.uga.edu]

Click the pic and sync the links.

Hugh, did Blake write the additional 2 stanzas? If so, did they come before or after the Songs of Experience poems?

Les

The Portable Blake shows the Songs 1788-1794 and the First Series 1793-1799, so they would appear to have come later.

Searching the Blake Concordance for 'laid me down' says it can be found in his Notebook, but searching for said notebook at the full site did not turn it up for me:

[www.english.uga.edu]

[www.english.uga.edu]

For some reason I cannot get Google to find it with a search of that particular domain either, although Googling the www.eapoe.org pages works 100%.

[www.google.com]