Unlike ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ the poem ‘London’ is not a sonnet it has a rhyming scheme of ABABABABABABABAB. This means that the whole poem is divided into rhyming couplets using a simple, traditional song form.
In the first stanza Blake describes the people in the city ‘every face I meet’. Blake reveals how he identifies people by marks of weakness and woe, he does not recognise their faces but the distinguishing marks he sees.
In the second stanza he uses a repetition of the word ‘every’ to make it seem as though he can hear ‘mind-forged manacles’ in everything. This gives the impression that the whole city has been arrested and is in handcuffs, unable to do anything without permission. The rhythm of the poem continues with this idea of the clanking of handcuffs because it is a lugubrious (drum beat) rhythm.
The third stanza links everyone together including royalty, soldiers, God and an everyday chimney sweep. The chimney sweeps cry, was a symbolic figure of depression, which horrified the church: which makes it seem as though the city is horrifying, for the people to live in. There is also a link to the French Revolution here where the people are swept along by military leaders, it can be seen as a warning to the monarchy that the same could happen to England. ‘Runs in blood down palace walls’ shows how the ‘important’ people residing in the palace are killing the soldiers by forcing them to fight and ‘causing’ their deaths.
The last stanza, describes how the innocent, young peoples lives are destroyed at a very young age, sometimes even before they are born. Here Blake is talking about night time London observing prostitution. ‘Blasts’ is used very effectively here to show how even before birth babies lives are often ruined by prostitution and the increased chance of catching sexually transmitted diseases off their parents.
In the final stanza Blake uses an oxymoron ‘Marriage hearse’ this gives the impression that when people get married they are already dying or that marriage leads to death.
The whole poem is written in a very formal way, with full stops at the end of each stanza and punctuation at the end of most lines. The poem is written in four stanzas which do not flow into each other and are not connected in any way.
Throughout ‘London’ Blake manages to continuously portray a negative impression of the city.
Wordsworth uses a different form. The first part of the poem is divided by the rhyming scheme, there are two lots of ABBA where the first and last, and the two middle lines of the division rhyme. The last part of the poem has rhyming couplets, where alternate lines rhyme. He has used this rhyming scheme, because it is the same rhyming scheme as commonly used in sonnets.
In ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ Wordsworth is not referring to the streets of London but the countryside surrounding it. He describes it as beautiful and majestic and the buildings as ‘bright and ‘glittering’. Wordsworth wrote the poem in the form of a sonnet and emphasises the beauty and grandeur of the city, there is a constant repetition of how peaceful and calm London is.
However, Wordsworth describes the actual city rather than mankind. He does not describe the man made properties of London as much as the natural beauty of its surroundings.
The whole sonnet expands the idea that it is a love poem written to London. This is because Wordsworth does not write anything negative about the city and talks about it as though it means a lot to him. He does not mention much about human contamination in the city, because of its association with sin but he does refer to God. Unlike in ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ the relationship between man and God is a happy one, with them living side by side, this is a huge contrast to the distortion that Blake writes about. When he mentions God he says ‘Dear God’ which makes it appear more like a letter. God is seen by many as the creator of the World so talking about the natural beauty of London and God at the same time is quite normal.
In the poem Wordsworth refers to majesty which is often associated with royalty, this makes it seem as though Wordsworth thinks that the city is majestic like the royalty who live there. This is in immense contrast to when Blake mentions people living in a palace (royalty) where he refers to them as forceful rulers.
Wordsworth probably wrote this poem in the morning or with the morning in his mind, because it is often the most beautiful time of the day and he mentions the ‘beauty of the morning’. I think that ‘London’ was more likely to have been written later in the day or at night because there were prostitutes on the streets, and the chimney sweeps were crying for work.
‘Open to the fields, and to the sky’ gives the impression that the city does not stand out from its countryside surroundings as much as you would expect. He describes the city’s air as smokeless, which would only be true if the poem was written later in the day; as there were many smoky factories in London, during this time period.
Wordsworth emphasises the idea that he has never seen anything more beautiful than the city of London, ‘Never did sun more beautifully steep‘, ‘Ne’er saw I’ and ‘never felt’ all give the impression that it is the greatest place Wordsworth has ever seen. Everything in the poem does what it wants to as ‘The river glideth at its own sweet will‘, this is in contrast to ‘London’ where the Thames river is almost being forced in one direction against its choice.
Compared to ‘London’ the poem flows more fluently, it is not divided into stanzas but enjambment is used, as ideas flow from one line into the next. The poem is not divided into different subjects because it is generally all about the same aspects of the city.
I think that both of the poets present their personal views well, we can definitely see that Blake is trying to create a negative image of the city and that Wordsworth is doing the complete opposite by portraying London as a positive place. They can not be expected to come to the same conclusion about the city when they are describing different areas of it.
The poem ‘London’ makes the reader feel responsible for the poverty in the city whereas the poem ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ uplifts the reader. I do not think ‘London’ is still applicable today whereas ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge still holds more relevance in modern day England. The country is no longer suffering from such wide spread poverty compared to when Blake wrote the poem, which makes it considerably less relevant.
I think that both poets present their views well throughout their poems, although ‘London’ is probably a more accurate description of the inner city during the 1700’s and 1800’s. ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ was probably written more to describe looking at London from a distance rather in the inner city, where less negative aspects are seen.
