Blake
London
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 black’ning 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
Traduzione
Io vago attraverso le strade
monopolizzate,
vicino a dove scorre il Tamigi
monopolizzato,
e noto in ogni faccia che incontro,
i segni della debolezza, i segni del dolore.
In ogni pianto di ogni uomo,
in ogni prianto infantile di paura,
in ogni voce: in ogni divieto,
sento le catene forgate dalla mente.
Come il pianto dello spazza camino,
atterrito dalla Chiesa annerita,
e il sospiro del soldato sfortunato,
scorre in sangue lungo i muri del palazzo.
Ma attraverso la maggior parte delle
strade a mezzanotte sento,
Come la maledizione della giovane
prostituta
Secca la lacrima dell’infante neonato,
E rovina con infezioni il carro funebre del
matrimonio.
ANALYSIS
Words
Charter: important document uses for financial matter
Ban: legal prohibition
Harlot: prostitute
The poet is talking to a silent listener.
The setting is London in the 19th century during a night, the poet perceives his
sensation through hearing and sight. He sees people tired and suffering.
Saying “charter” he would underline that the society and nature are dominated by
commercial profit, so this links to the idea of imprisonment like “the mind-forg’d
manacles” which reflects an idea of psychological and moral imprisonment (it’s a
metaphor: the tenor is the condition of moral imprisonment caused by individual, the
common ground is the imprisonment and the vehicle is the mind which forges the
manacles). For the poet, the causes of this problem are marriage laws, religion and
political institution, and the victims are the chimney sweeper, the soldier and the
harlot.
