London
by William Blake

I wandered through each chartered street,
      Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A 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.