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 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

 

THE LAST OF THE FLOCK

 

In distant countries have I been,
And yet I have not often seen
A healthy man, a man full grown,
Weep in the public roads, alone.
But such a one, on English ground,
And in the broad highway, I met;
Along the broad highway he came,
His cheeks with tears were wet:
Sturdy he seemed, though he was sad;
And in his arms a Lamb he had.
 
He saw me, and he turned aside,
As if he wished himself to hide:
And with his coat did then essay
To wipe those briny tears away.
I followed him, and said, "My friend,
What ails you? wherefore weep you so?"
—"Shame on me, Sir! this lusty Lamb,
He makes my tears to flow.
To-day I fetched him from the rock:
He is the last of all my flock.
 
"When I was young, a single man,
And after youthful follies ran,
Though little given to care and thought,
Yet, so it was, an ewe I bought;
And other sheep from her I raised,
As healthy sheep as you might see;
And then I married, and was rich
As I could wish to be;
Of sheep I numbered a full score,
And every year increased my store.
 
"Year after year my stock it grew;
And from this one, this single ewe,
Full fifty comely sheep I raised,
As fine a flock as ever grazed!
Upon the Quantock hills they fed;
They throve, and we at home did thrive:
—This lusty Lamb of all my store
Is all that is alive;
And now I care not if we die,
And perish all of poverty.
 
"Six Children, Sir! had I to feed;
Hard labour in a time of need!
My pride was tamed, and in our grief
I of the Parish asked relief.
They said, I was a wealthy man;
My sheep upon the uplands fed,
And it was fit that thence I took
Whereof to buy us bread.
'Do this: how can we give to you,'
They cried, 'what to the poor is due?'
 
"I sold a sheep, as they had said,
And bought my little children bread,
And they were healthy with their food;
For me—it never did me good.
A woeful time it was for me,
To see the end of all my gains,
The pretty flock which I had reared
With all my care and pains,
To see it melt like snow away—
For me it was a woeful day.
 
"Another still! and still another!
A little lamb, and then its mother!
It was a vein that never stopped—
Like blood-drops from my heart they dropped.
'Till thirty were not left alive
They dwindled, dwindled, one by one;
And I may say, that many a time
I wished they all were gone—
Reckless of what might come at last
Were but the bitter struggle past.
 
"To wicked deeds I was inclined,
And wicked fancies crossed my mind;
And every man I chanced to see,
I thought he knew some ill of me:
No peace, no comfort could I find,
No ease, within doors or without;
And, crazily and wearily
I went my work about;
And oft was moved to flee from home,
And hide my head where wild beasts roam.
 
"Sir! 'twas a precious flock to me,
As dear as my own children be;
For daily with my growing store
I loved my children more and more.
Alas! it was an evil time;
God cursed me in my sore distress;
I prayed, yet every day I thought
I loved my children less;
And every week, and every day,
My flock it seemed to melt away.
 
"They dwindled, Sir, sad sight to see!
From ten to five, from five to three,
A lamb, a wether, and a ewe;-.
And then at last from three to two;
And, of my fifty, yesterday
I had but only one:
And here it lies upon my arm,
Alas! and I have none;—
To-day I fetched it from the rock;
It is the last of all my flock."

 

 

 

I have decided to focus my essay on two of the greatest poets of the Romantic Period: William Blake and William Wordsworth making reference to their poems: London (1794) and The Last of the Flock (1798) respectively. I have chosen these poets because in these two poems both of them are talking about the new socio-political situation of England , as well as the deeper changes the country underwent with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

Blake and Wordsworth were direct witnesses of the socio-political and economical transformation of their times. At the time Blake and Wordsworth wrote their poems, the capitalism experienced a great growth and both poets were against this development. Besides, they were sympathizers of the Revolution because both of them believed that the Revolution could bring a fairer society.

 

Beginning with, the first similarity we can establish between these poems is a matter of style more than a thematic one. The language used in these two poems is very simple. London is a direct poem, very easy to read. It is a poem with great simplicity but with a lot of meaning. The same happens with Wordsworth's The Last of the Flock . Wordsworth wrote his poem in plain language, although he used the metaphor of the flock to condemn the arrival of capitalism. But the real reason why both of them used this pure style was because what they want most was that everyone (literate and non-literate people) could read and understand their poetry without any kind of problem.

 

Furthermore, another thing they have in common in these two poems is that both, Blake and Wordsworth, evoke in their poems images of death, despair, misery, grief and shame. Both poems show us the miserable life of the people during the Industrial Revolution. We can find some examples of this in their poems.

 

In London the scenes of misery, grief, and death are constant along the poem. In the first two stanzas, Blake makes a description of how horrible the city of London was, a city in which, it seems to be, no body was happy. Then, in the two last stanzas, he describes the dreadful situation of the working class. The same could be shown in The Last of the Flock , but with a difference. Whereas in London are described almost all the harmed parts that belonged to the lower-class, such as the poor people, the little children who had to work as chimney-sweepers (most of them used to die at an early age), the disenchanted soldiers and the prostitutes with their children infected with deadly diseases, in The Last of the Flock , the dissatisfaction is concentrated in the figure of the shepherd. The shepherd, as the rest of the rabble is suffering the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Another bad consequence with the appearance of the Industrial Revolution, the capitalism and of course, without forgetting the war with France , was the rise of the prices. In London this fact is exposed in the third and fourth stanza. The children had to work cleaning chimneys in order to contribute to the economy of their families. The women were forced to prostitution with the purpose of getting money. The worst consequence of this was death; women could contract lethal diseases and transmit them to their offspring, on the other hand, chimney sweepers would contract sickness, and this sickness could lead them to death.

 

The Last of the Flock reveals us how, with the emergence of capitalism, the new society of the time had to be. The poem shows that the family is now a unity of consumption, not production. It is demonstrated in the fifth and sixth stanzas, when the poor man has to buy bread for his children (consumption), instead of keeping his sheep for further production. England moved from an agricultural family-based economy to an industry-based economy.

 

Moreover, in The Last of the Flock , the shepherd suffer the loss of his flock, it can also symbolize the loss of the lands as a result of capitalism, now that the people loss their lands from the wealthy people.

 

In order to conclude with my essay, I would like to say that at the beginning, the Industrial Revolution had serious consequences but later on, everything changed and the influence of the revolution was one of the most important things that have happened in the history of human life. But we have to bear in mind Blake and Wordsworth's point of view, because the change that they and their contemporaries endured was a colossal one. They were not aware of the new ideas, but as good sons of their time they defended the harmed class and denounced the injustices of their epoch.