London William Blake
London William Blake, London is a typical poem of William Blake. This poem has been taken from Blakes’s collection of Songs of Experience”. Blake paints the social and political picture of then London. The poet becomes assertive and aggressive when he uses personal pronouns.
The Tiger By William Blake (Read Here)
The use of I reflects that the condition shown in the poem cannot be denied as this has been seen by the poet himself. The poet has moved through every street of London and found that chaos prevailed everywhere. The word “charted” heightens the prevailing condition.
Though the streets are charted or protected by law, the chaos cannot be controlled. As the Theme is confined within its two banks similarly every street is confined within its two brinks and every man moving on the streets bears the marks of woe and persecution.
London William Blake Summary
And, this persecution and torture are heard in the cry of every man and child. Their independence and freedom seem to have been snatched by powerful men or men of authority. Not only social and political but religious conditions also had fallen to the state of condemnation.
The chimney sweepers always remained in the grip of grief and fear. The “blackening church” suggests the ignoble condition of the church. Now, the church was not a centre of purity and piousness.
The soldiers too were unlucky and unfortunate as instead of showing their bravery and patriotism for their nation, they are protecting the “blood-down palace” Blake has chosen a very appropriate phrase to express the fallen state of the royal palace.
The palace which was once the symbol of apex honour and glory has now been relegated to the state of dishonour as it is ‘blood-down’, The worst thing is the cry of the youthful harlot which is heard throughout the midnight.
And this cry plagues the pious pleasure of conjugal love and blasts the tear of newly born infants. Marriage is no longer a permanent pleasure of meeting two souls.
London William Blake Analysis
The poem consists of four stanzas. Each stanza contains four-lines is. The poem has been composed in four quartets.
Each stanza has the rhyme scheme of ab. This is a poem that reflects the social, political are religious conditions of late-eighteenth-century, London. The same picture of London has been created by William Wordsworth in his sonnet. “London -1802”.
This poem also reflects Blake’s ideals of life and his keen observation of the life around him. His phrases “mind-forged manacles” for men of authority; “blackening church” for a decaying church; “blood-down palace” for the cruelty of the king and the nobles and “marriage hearse” for a marriage that soon leads to the grave; create the images perfectly and strongly.
Read more from Mystic Drum (click)
