London+by+Blake

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**// London //** ** (From //Songs of Experience)// ** ** by William Blake **

I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,  In every infant's cry of fear,  In every voice, in every ban,  The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry  Every blackening church appals,  And the hapless soldier's sigh  Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear  How the youthful harlot's curse  Blasts the new-born infant's tear,  And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

1794