Key quotations

• ‘I wonder through’

  Opening lines. shows the poem is structured as a journey
• ‘Charter’d‘

  repetition. Suggest London is owned and people have been robbed of their rights
• ‘Every’

  In stanza two. The repetition of ‘every’ suggest the enormity of poverty from children through to adults
• ‘Black’ning church’ and ‘runs in blood down palace walls‘


  Blake place blame on the church and state
• ‘Blights with plagues’


  Final words. Suggest everything good is destroyed. ‘plagues’ implies decay and pestilence