London 伦敦

—William Blake 威廉.布莱克

简介：William Blake, who is a British poet, painter, visionary mystic and engraver, illustrated and printed his own books. Once I heard the name of him, I just knew he was a versatile man. However, the poem—‘London’ astound me deeply when I read it again and again. There are some beautiful words, wonderful rhythm and imaginational sentences.

The poem has four stanzas, and each line has ten syllables. Every stanza has double rhyme. For example, the first stanza has two foots, ‘|I | and |ou|’. It uses some rhetoric methods in the poem, just like trope, parallelism, and metaphor. The three ‘in every’ are obvious parallelism in the second line. In the third line, Blake used hyperbole, antitheses and metaphor. The miserable chimney-sweeper contrasts the bright church. The soldier contrasts the palace walls. And the last sentence tells readers that the decayed society will be destroyed eventually.

Blake used the words skillfully. For instance, the ‘chartered’ means that a street or a river owned by rich men and nobles only. He just used a word to describe a hierarchical society that poor man has not the right to walk on the chartered street or see the river—Thames. Then he used three ‘mark’. The first ‘mark’ is a noun, the other two ones are verb. It depicts the weak and woeful people in the street visually. In the last line, Blake used the word ‘blast’ to describe how harmful ‘the youthful harlot’s curse’ to the baby. It gives readers a consuming feeling that the curse will destroy all the things thoroughly.

‘London’, which had been written in 1794 is a lyric. At the time, the Britain had been capitalism for centuries. The society became more decayed as the time past. For express the dissatisfaction to the society, the author wrote the poem. Blake opened out the reality that the society moldered day by day. The distance between rich and poor were larger and larger. More and more inequable things happened in the daily lives. It seems that people lost the hope for the future. Blake used a technique as montage to write the different angles of the society. As the fast change of the scene, the poem shows up a real British society to readers. I see as though the weak and woeful faces; I hear as though the cry of chimney-sweeper; moreover, as though the youthful harlot’s curse hovers over my ears unceasingly. The feeling is so vivid even more than 200 years past.

I love the poem because of the real description but the beautiful words. The most real poem, the most real society.

I wandered through each chartered street, 我走过每条独占的街道，

Near where the chartered Thames does flow, 徘徊在独占的泰晤士河边，

A mark in every face I meet, 我看见每个过往的行人

Marks of weakness, marks of woe. 有一张衰弱、痛苦的脸。

In every cry of every man, 每个人的每升呼喊，

In every infant’s cry of fear, 每个婴孩害怕的号叫，

In every voice, in every ban, 每句话，每条禁令，

The mind-forged manacles I hear: 都响着心灵铸成的镣铐。

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry 多少扫烟囱孩子的喊叫

Every blackening church appals, 震惊了一座座熏黑的教堂，

And the hapless soldier’s sigh 不幸兵士的长叹

Runs in blood down palace-walls. 化成鲜血流下了宫墙。

But most, through midnight streets I hear 最怕是深夜的街头

How the youthful harlot’s curse 又听年轻妓女的诅咒!

Blasts the new-born infant’s tear, 它骇注了初生儿的眼泪，

And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse. 又用瘟疫摧残了婚礼丧车。