I wander through each chartered street,     Near where the chartered Thames does flow, A 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-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry     Every blackening church appals, And the hapless soldier’s sigh     Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear     How the youthful harlot’s curse Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,     And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.