is clear.

The church, the speaker says, is "blackning," a reference to its increasing moral decay as well as a symbolic association with death, and the sighing of soldiers is likened to "blood" running "down Palace walls," another image associated with death. The poem's final line refers to "blights" and "plagues" and "the Marriage hearse," connecting marriage to suffering and death rather than the start of a new life of two lovers together.

This poem's placement in Songs of Experience implies that as he gained experience and thus a more mature outlook on the world, Blake came to view London, his home, as full of suffering, disease, pain, and corruption. The universal misery Blake presents here can be said to reflect the Christian worldview of the fallen state of humanity: London's helpless and hopeless state is a result of the sin and corruption of mankind.

Blake, in "London," describes what he sees when he walks through the streets of London just before the turn of the nineteenth century. For context, this was while the French Revolution was occurring in France. At the time, the church leaders and monarchy of England were exploiting and oppressing the citizens. The third stanza speaks of the chimney sweepers' crying that turns the church walls black and the soldiers' sighing as their blood runs down the walls of the palace. Metaphorically or literally, this indicates the misuse and abuse of these individuals by those who run the country, namely the church and state. Because we know that Blake supported the French Revolution, we might conclude that the "mind-forg'd manacles" in the second stanza refer to the Londoners' unwillingness to rise up and revolt against the oppression they experience. More broadly, this speaks about the condition of human suffering that sometimes occurs when men lose their hope that life can be altered and become emotionally crippled, unwilling to break with the reality they are accustomed to. Blake refers to this as "marks of weakness, marks of woe."

In "London," one of William Blake's "Songs of Experience," the depressing moral flaws of mankind are presented. The persona in the poem notes "marks of weakness" on every face. Given the qualities discussed in later stanzas, the weakness is likely moral, not physical, and therefore it leads to "marks of woe." The common note in the cries of men and babies, and in every voice and every proclamation is oppression--"mind-forg'd manacles." People are being victimized everywhere in the city. Even the Church, which should be a moral beacon, is darkened by the cruel poverty endured by the chimney sweeps because society is too selfish to provide a decent living for them. And the State, which could be a pillar of society, acts instead as a murderer of soldiers. Worst of all, the family unit is corrupted by immorality as a newborn baby is born blind because the father had contracted venereal disease and passed it on to his unknowing wife. Now their marriage is nothing more than a hearse to bear along their ruined relationship. This poem decries the moral darkness that plagues mankind and corrupts even the most central institutions of society.