Lines 1 - 2

• “I wander thro each charter’d street,

  Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,”
• Translation

  • The first-person narrator is strolling through the streets of London, near the River Thames
  • He does not seem to have a set destination, as he tells us “I wander
• Blake’s intention

  • The word “charter’d” (chartered) is referring to the fact that the streets and the Thames are mapped out and legally defined
  • Maps are an attempt to impose order on nature
  • In this poem, the order is being placed on society
  • Chartered also means to impose legal restrictions and ownership upon something
  • This is ironic because the Thames is a natural body of water
  • The fact that the narrator is wandering suggests he has no sense of purpose, which sets the tone of melancholy and pointlessness in the poem