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In his own words

London

William Blake · 1757-1827 · From Songs of Experience (1794)

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 appalls,And the hapless soldier's sigh Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most, through midnight streets I hear How the youthful harlot's curseBlasts the new-born infant's tear, And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

A walk through the city, reading marks of weakness and woe in every face. The church, the palace, and the marriage hearse each take a wound.

The poems are in the public domain. The texts here follow Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook 574, reproduced verbatim, punctuation included. That late 19th century text keeps the famous Tyger spelling while smoothing some others, so a few lines read slightly differently than in Blake's original etched plates. Songs of Innocence first appeared in 1789, Songs of Experience in 1794, combined by Blake into one book whose title page promises to show the two contrary states of the human soul. The introductions and groupings are ours.