Your Beauty, My Despair in "London" by William Blake

Essay by Anonymous UserCollege, UndergraduateB, December 1996

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Your Beauty, My Despair

The statement that "Beauty is truth; truth , beauty" does not hold to be a correct implication for everyone as far as life goes or the poem "London" goes. This poem written by William Blake, is about life as he saw it in that time frame and environment of society. In Blake's, poem the reality or "truth" of young girls having babies out of wedlock, soldiers being killed in wars, and poor people struggling to make a living does not look beautiful to me. And so we ask ourselves the question, who does this truth look beautiful to.

"How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new born Infants tear, and blights with plagues the Marriage hearse"(lines 14-16). Having children at a young age and while being unmarried is an occurrence we see far too much of today in our own society. What animal can rejoice in this truth of breeding poverty, of child abuse, of ignorance, and of uneducated children and call it beautiful? Those that are chosen, no forced to lead our society in the past of our grandparents, are not getting the proper training to do so because of teen pregnancy and drop out rates.

I am reminded of a dear friend of mine who birthed two children at the age of twelve and thirteen, how she struggled to regain her childhood but failed miserably. Now she just lives day by day thinking that there is no hope for her or her children. Blake saw the pain of this and yet he did not rejoice in its reality, but wept.

"And the hapless soldiers sigh Runs in blood down the Palace walls"(lines 11-12). Yes. Explain how the truth of families unnecessarily loosing loved ones to war can cause a merry celebration.