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 blackning 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 new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Like so many before and since, he places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the youthful Harlot. I guess he had some mind-forg'd manacles of his own.
4 comments:
fess up, lenya. do you have some sort of "great poets" daily planner?
lenya, do you happen to remember a dream that i believe dave f*shkin had in high school.. something about nick d*nt playing the saxaphone without a neck? oh i hope you do!
oh brilliant synchronization! at the moment i submitted my comment i remembered it!
"be quiet! maybe some day YOU have no neck!!"
Dear Lenya, Bloomsburg seems so far. Here in your romanophone homeland the blood on the palace walls is real. Lenya, let me say something quickly, gently: the slave-boy sweeper's cry, the brutalized and brutalizing soldier's, the dear and brutally vended girl's, they all are wild cries in wilderness of pain, our hearts are with them. They are the voices that crack the gloss smeared across false faces of church and palace and "marriage hearse", our hearts give them harmony! Garrison Keillor might have read you the poem without understanding it, but the poem is stronger than Garrison Keillor.
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