Vaughan Williams: 10 Blake Songs: IV. 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 blackening 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