7 - William Blake and the Universal Empire

Summary

They are mockd, by every one that passes by. they regard not

They labour; & when their Wheels are broken by scorn & malice

They mend them sorrowing with many tears & afflictions

William Blake, Jerusalem

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'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 Infants cry of fear,

In every voice; in every ban,

The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

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

In the sixteen lines of his 1794 Song of Experience, London, Blake produces a nightmarish vision of London – both as a city and as a space of systemic modern oppression. It is precisely because Blake identifies London with more than its material and physical spatiality (its buildings, streets, etc.) that, in charting a space of systemic oppression, he is also able to chart the space of London as a material city with physical and tangible dimensions. The poem recognizes that London cannot be apprehended except in such figurative or symbolic terms.