15,949. WILLIAM BLAKE

 WILLIAM BLAKE

Wandering those charter'd streets again, 

that's me, in 1994 : (' I wander through 

these charter'd streets near where the 

charter'd  Thames doth flow, and mark 

in every face I meet, marks of weakness, 

marks of woe.'). Had it been 1944, the 

streets would still have been smoldering.

As it was, it was 1794, and England was

soldiering on.

-

('In every cry of every man, in every

infants cry of fear, in every voice : in

every ban, the mind-forg'd manacles

I hear.').

-

There's too much there for me to stand.

I can't take in any more. The world, 

revolving, and revolting too, was in a

quite contagious mood. Streets and curbs

were being formed in noxious coalside

fumes, as people, felled daily by poverty

and starvation too, dropped mindlessly

from thos noxious fumes. A blackn'ing

city indeed!

-

('How the Chimney-sweepers cry

every blackning church appalls, and

the hapless soldiers cry runs in blood

down Palace walls.'

-

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

how the youthful Harlots curse blasts

the new-born Infants tear, and blights 

with plagues the Marriage hearse.').

-

And so I dip anew my heart to the streets;

blackening waters with foul memories, and

edging the curb with but a new-found hope

and bold reveries. But now it is 2023.