A London Slum

I was rereading some of William Blake’s Songs of Experience this evening and shuddered at the poem entitled, simply, “London”:

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 Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldier°s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the newborn Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

How strong is that phrase “mind-forg’d manacles”! How descriptive of a particularly American form of suffering in the Age of Trump!