The Literary World

(From Songs of Experience by William Blake)

I wander thro’ each charte’d street

Near where the charte’d 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 blacke’ning Church appalls;

And hapless soldier’s sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlot’s curse

Blasts the new born infant’s tear,

And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

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