William Blake's "London" depicts a man walking through the streets of London and talking about all the problems within the city, which include the corrupting values of the church, in inability of the people to think for themselves, the bloodshed of war, the exploitation of child labor, and prostitution. The people of London are oppressed and in his poem "London", Blake expresses what he sees happening in the city and the reasons why such things happen. Each line is important in deciphering the meaning of the poem, so I will break down each part of the poem. 

In the first stanza, Blake starts off by showing that the speaker of the poem is walking through the streets of London observing and commenting on what he sees. "I wander thro' each charter'd street,/Near where the charter'd Thames does flow."(1-2) Blake's use of the word charter'd is very important. He utilizes repetition to signify its significance to the meaning.  He uses it to describe both the street and the Thames in London. If a rode or a river is chartered it means it is mapped out, built, maintained, and regulated by the state. In this context, he seems to be using the word chartered to mean legally defined. So the streets and rivers of London have been legally defined or under government control. And if the roads and rivers are under strict Government control, the people who live there are no longer free. This suggests that the roads and rivers that have been dug out by man confine the people so that they no longer have any rights outside of what the government and the church have given them.  The people are enslaved to the manmade government regulated roads and the Thames of London.

The Chartered roads and Thames are not the only things the speaker sees as he is walking through the streets of London. He also gets a good look at the people. "And mark in every face I meet/Marks of weakness, marks of woe." He uses repetition again, this time with the word "Mark". He sees a "Mark" in every face he sees. He sees a "Mark" of weakness and "Marks" of Woe. By marks on their faces it seems he is talking about their expressions. They aren't cheerful or energetic but defeated and weak. They are Woeful. They feel sorry for themselves and have no desire to fight against their oppressors. 

In the second stanza, the speaker of the poem claims he can hear "mind forg'd manacles" in everything in the city. 

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. (5-8)

Repetition is also used in this stanza with the word "every". He puts a lot of emphasis on this word to say that there is no one in this city is free from their "mind forg'd manacles". By mind he is talking about the individual's ability to think for themselves. This ability has been suppressed by manacles which means shackles, cuffs, or anything that restrains action or ability to move. It has a similar connotation as the word "Chartered" in the first stanza. It represents something that is enslaving the people. This time, he is referring to the minds of the people. The people aren't just limited by regulation, but their ability to think for themselves as well. And these manacles are "forged". The word forged has a double meaning in this context. It means to copy. The people have copied the same ideologies of the church. It also refers to the same process in which a blacksmith creates armor and weapons out of metal. The church has melted and shaped shackles on the minds of the people in order to stop them from thinking freely. The people listen and obey everything the church says, in order to avoid punishment. Blake is critiquing the combination of church and state, saying that the people should be allowed to think for themselves without fear of repercussions. Blake probably wrote this in response to the French Revolution that was going on during the time in which the poem was written. He saw them as a prime example of what happens, when the state allows freedom of religion and of thought, and wanted what the French had.

The speaker of the poem goes on to discuss the problem of the chimney sweepers. In his other poem "The Chimney Sweeper", Blake brings to light the horrible life of chimney sweepers. At the end of this poem, Blake uses irony to critique the way of thinking set by the church, which is that it does not matter how awful, the chimney sweepers' lives are, because the after-life will be much better. "Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;/So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.(23-24)" Chimney sweepers were very small children (usually orphans) assigned with the task of being lowered into chimneys and cleaning them. According the Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" this job was horrible, filthy, dangerous, and caused many health concerns. Many of the children who worked as chimney sweepers would die from lung cancer, falling, or even getting stuck in the chimney. These children had awful lives and a sickeningly short life expectancies. And the speaker of the poem blames the Church. "How the Chimney-sweepers cry/Every black'ning Church appalls" (9-10). He describes the church as "blackening". This word has double meaning. He means it literally in the sense that because of the church, the children are going into chimneys and getting black soot on them. He also means in in a metaphorical sense. The Church is corrupt. It no longer takes care of the innocent as it is supposed to. Instead the orphans that they are supposed to be taking care of are dying because of the dangerous labor they are forced to do. And these churches appall. They are horrified at their own action and their own guilt. However, no one seems to question this in this time, because the church has taught them that it doesn't matter how much we abuse these children in this life, because the afterlife is all that matters. Blake is saying that when the church twists the meaning scripture, it results wickedness and corruption and the people don't question it. 

In the next two lines of the third stanza, Blake blames the meaningless deaths of thousands of soldiers on the state. "And the hapless Soldiers sigh, /Runs in blood down Palace walls."(11-12) Taken literally this sentence doesn't make much sense. A sigh cant run down the Palace walls in Blood. This sentence is a metaphor. When I think of a person sighing, it is usually because they are annoyed. It is a coping method. As in, if a person asked me do a favor that was inconvenient for me, I would sigh out of annoyance and just get it over with. Blake specifically says the soldiers are sighing. They aren't grieving or emotionally distressed. They are just annoyed. Then in the next line the speaker talks about the blood on Palace walls. Obviously, there is not literally blood on Palace walls. This is part of the metaphor. The Blood on the Palace walls represents all the soldiers that have died, because of the orders of the state.  And despite countless men dying, the only reaction that the speaker says that the soldiers have is a sigh. The soldiers have given up. They no longer have much value for their fellow soldiers. Death is normalized to the point, that instead of grieving, the soldiers just sigh and shrug it off. Blake is critiquing the ethics of war as it devalues human life to the point where death can just be shrugged off. 

In the final stanza, the speaker discusses that which is bothering him the most about the city. "But most thro' midnight streets I hear/How the youthful Harlot's curse" (13-14) He starts off the last stanza with the word "but".  This implies that despite the horrors of the city in which he talked about in the previous stanzas, this last one is bothering him the most. He goes on talking about the time and place in which he is observing. He is observing the streets of London at midnight. And similar to today's streets, that which is considered shameful and wicked happens in the cover of night, not to be seen by those who would look down upon them, or police that would stop them. Specifically in this case he is talking about harlots, or as we would call them today by the slang term "Hookers". And he uses an odd term to describe these disgraceful women. He refers to them as youthful. The term youthful implies innocence in a way only a child can be. He is not blaming the women of the night. He is saying that these innocent women are cursed. They didn't choose this life. This was the only way they could take care of themselves since there was no way for unmarried women to provide for themselves. There were no jobs available for them, and so in order to survive they had to become outcasts of society looked down upon by others. In London there was one prostitute for every twelve men. It was a serious issue in London, not only because it was considered to be immoral, but because of the spread of diseases such as cephalous. And then the speaker talks about the children that were born to the prostitutes, "How the youthful Harlot's curse/ Blasts the new-born Infant's tear" This could mean several different things. It could literally mean a birth defect brought on by sexually transmitted diseases that causes babies' tear ducts to be deformed thus causing the infants' eyes to water uncontrollably. He could also be saying that the children born to these prostitutes will most likely have no future and are likely be orphaned. The tears of the children could also represent the destruction of youthful innocents, as these children were born out of what the church would call sin. All of these interpretations are right. They all support the point in which Blake is trying to get at. The reason in which Blake blames for the prostitutes and the desecration of what was once innocent (childhood), is the institution of marriage created by the church. "And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse."(16) The Church's institution of marriage is the reason behind these plagues of society. And it's not only the institution of marriage, but sexism brought on by the church as well. The reason many of these women have had to become prostitutes is because unmarried women have no way of taking care of themselves, and once they enter this profession they have no chance of ever getting married. This is because men will never marry a woman who is not a virgin. However, it is different for men. It is almost expected that a man would have lost his virginity by the time he is married, and it makes no difference. Women's rights are unheard of during this period in London due to sexism pressed on by the church. The lack of rights for women have caused mass prostitution and disease, and to Blake this is the most despicable aspect of London Life.

In Conclusion, Blake wants the people of Great Britain and especially London, to break their shackles, and cause a revolution. The Speaker of the poem, describes a messed up society brought on by the corrupt and oppressive church and state. Blake's thinking is beyond the people of London in his time, and has a lot to do with the influence of the French revolution. Blake wants the people to wake up and see the messed up world that they live in and moreover that they can do something about it if they think for themselves. 

