| I wander through each chartered street, | |
| Near where the chartered 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-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 |