i really dont understand poetry! please help! what is the message and symbols of William Blake's London poem?

Question

please explain why, i really want to try and understand poetry

"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 Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every black'ning 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

Answer 1

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.

I'm not sure what the exact meaning is that Blake has in mind for "charter'd", but it is indicative of control and the unnaturalness of the environment. Charters were often granted to persons or corporations granting them control of some property so they could exploit it. The environment has been plotted out, gridded, whatever, by those in authority, and the environment controls the common people, instead of allowing the common people to control the environment for their own benefit.
The next two lines are pretty self-explanatory. Everyone Blake sees looks weak, tired and unhappy.
London is not a happy and healthy place.

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

In everything he hears from every human voice, he once again recognizes that peoples' minds are not free. "Manacles" are like handcuffs- so peoples' minds are as if they are restrained. That the manacles are "mind-forg'd" suggests, again, that man has made these restraints to control the common people.

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every black'ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

The chimney sweepers were dirty and among the lowest of the low- they appall the churches because the churches want nothing to do with the poor, and the churches' walls are blackened for that reason. The church is doing nothing to improve the lives of common people.
The people who live in the palace- the rulers of the land- bear still in Blake's time a good deal of responsibility for wars, hence the dying soldier's blood runs down the palace walls.
The church and the government don't do anything to help the common people and exploit them.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear

And last but not least, the one relationship that we would most want to hear is still healthy, mother to her child, is not. Mother is a prostitute, and curses her child who has been born out of wedlock. London will not improve if this continues- the next generation will not be any better off.

Answer 2

Blake (who wrote 100 years or more before Robert Frost) called this poem "Auguries of Innocence," I believe. To me, the poem says that if we can recover the innocence of our original selves -- if the cynical, discouraged or guilt-haunted adult can "become like a little child" again -- in Jesus's words -- the world will seem infinite and timeless to us. Recover your original innocence, Blake is saying, and looking at a wildflower will give you a taste of heaven. There's a Bob Dylan song from the 1960s, probably written under the influence of drugs, that has basically the same message. It's called "Gates of Eden." When you can get back inside the "Gates of Eden" and recover your original innocence, Dylan's lyrics suggest, the world's problems -- war, injustice, intolerance, hypocrisy and the like -- fade away, and existence is holy and beautiful. I think that was Blake's vision, too, although Blake's half-gnostic, half-antinomian metaphysics was probably even more complicated that Bob Dylan's. I disagree with those who read this poem as an intimation of mortality, as some kind of elegy for the fleetingness of life -- a la the Book of Ecclesiastes, or a la Frost's comment that "nothing gold can stay." Blake as a thinker doesn't generally deny mortality, but there's no mention of it at all in this verse. Nor is there any mention of Jesus. For better or worse, Blake's vision in this poem is not epicurean or stoic, not focused on the inherent changeability of the universe. It's not focused on salvation through acceptance of Christ, at least Blake isn't talking about that. It's also not fundamentally concerned with the inevitability of death and suffering -- as, say, Frost's poems and the Buddha's teachings are. Blake here is celebrating the mystical sense of bliss that can arise from achieving oneness with the moment. "To hold infinity in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour."

Answer 3

Define Appall

Answer 4

Charterd means that the streets are rented out, blake is engaging capitalism in the debate

Answer 5

This topic is worth people's attention

Answer 6

I don't really have a lot of time to write something but I think he is painfully aware of the hopelessness of life.