London - Greg Brown

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