How shall the summer arise in joy,
  Or the summer fruits appear? 
  Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
  Or bless the mellowing year,
  When the blasts of winter appear?

  LONDON

  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.

  From AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE

To see a World in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.

  A robin redbreast in a cage
  Puts all Heaven in a rage. 
  A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
  Shudders hell through all its regions. 
  A dog starved at his master’s gate
  Predicts the ruin of the state. 
  A horse misused upon the road
  Calls to Heaven for human blood. 
  Each outcry of the hunted hare
  A fibre from the brain does tear. 
  A skylark wounded in the wing,
  A cherubim does cease to sing. 
  The game-cock clipped and armed for fight
  Does the rising sun affright. 
  Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
  Raises from hell a human soul. 
  The wild deer, wandering here and there,
  Keeps the human soul from care. 
  The lamb misused breeds public strife,
  And yet forgives the butcher’s knife. 
  The bat that flits at close of eve
  Has left the brain that won’t believe. 
  The owl that calls upon the night
  Speaks the unbeliever’s fright. 
  He who shall hurt the little wren
  Shall never be beloved by men. 
  He who the ox to wrath has moved
  Shall never be by woman loved. 
  The wanton boy that kills the fly
  Shall feel the spider’s enmity. 
  He who torments the chafer’s sprite
  Weaves a bower in endless night. 
  The caterpillar on the leaf
  Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief. 
  Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
  For the Last Judgment draweth nigh. 
  He who shall train the horse to war
  Shall never pass the polar bar. 
  The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
  Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.

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