London

• "I wander through each chartered street"

  • chartered - everything is owned by rulers
  • contrasts to how we can still 'wander' if we change how we view London
• "the mind-forged manacles I hear"

  • metaphor - entrapment in psychological chains created by ideas of society or themselves
  • alliteration - memorable
• "Every blackning church appalls"

  • Church - literal description: churches turning black from soot
  • Blake thinks the church no longer follows Jesus' teachings and has become part of the establishment
  • appalls - attacking church for its complacency and for not being appalled
• "Runs in blood down palace walls"

  • attack on political power
  • reference to French revolution
  • society is so corrupt with the rich having power, that the poor will rise up and rebel
• "and blights with plagues the marriage hearse"

  • oxymoron - links death to marriage
  • attack on men who treat women as less important and breaks the marriage