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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.
In the ruins of St. Ebba’s Lunatic Asylum. Epsom, Surrey, England.
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,
Photographed by Ellen von Unwerth for her book Revenge.
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 and desires.
(William Blake, “The Garden of Love.”)
Binding with briars my joys and desires.
The Thought Experiment 