This tea towel features William Blake's poem 'London' from "Songs of Experience":
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 Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
After the French Revolution, the British government began to oppress civil democratic activities, making London quite different from before and laws began to be imposed which restricted the freedom of individuals. In this poem Blake presents a very negative picture of 18th-century England and London in particular, suggesting that many human miseries are caused by the systems and laws other men have imposed upon the poorest and most wretched in society. Blake’s support of the French Revolution lends credence to the interpretation that the experience of living in London could encourage a revolution on the streets of the capital. Or, an alternative interpretation could be that Blake is bemoaning Londoners’ reluctance to free themselves, and their apparent willingness to remain slaves.
