Sample answer

• The speaker repeats the word "charter'd", indicating his dismay at the fact that everything in the city is owned, even the river.
• Blake uses a caesura in line 4 to reinforce the impact of city life on the people living there.
• The poem is full of negative language, which reveals the speaker's attitude to the city.
• There are several references to violence, suggesting the speaker views the city as a danger to all who inhabit it. There is the "cry of fear", the sigh of a soldier "Runs in blood down Palace walls", new-born infants are blasted, and marriage is blighted.
• The speaker makes reference to the dirty conditions, which spoil everything, from churches to children.
• Sounds are an important element in the poem, representing the great noise the city produces as the speaker "wander[s] thro" it. There are cries, the sound of "mind-forg'd manacles" and curses. These sounds are all the result of anguish and pain, caused by conditions in the city.
• The city is presented as a place where the usual morality is ignored, with negative consequences. Prostitution, which is prevalent, is seen as damaging the future of the family, both physically and spiritually.