ho are benefiting from it because it prevents them from finding a true and lasting happiness. This ban that Blake speaks of can also be thought of as a curse in another sense. And, consequently, another connotation of curse during that time was venereal disease. This, as well as the diseases relation to marriage comes up later in the poem. All things in Blakes poem are interconnected, and the speaker's emphasis on the tightly knit matrix of London's citizens becomes more specific in the last two stanzas of the poem. In stanza three, he connects the misery of the chimney sweep to the hypocrisy of the church and the suffering of soldiers for the policies of the state. Blake begins this stanza speaking about how the chimney sweepers cry every blackning church appals" (lines 9-10). The supposedly pure, pristine institution of the church is actually dirtying itself by using these young boys to clean its chimneys. Blake then refers to the hapless soldiers sigh runs in blood down palace walls (lines 11-12). Perhaps in reference to the war with France, the sarcasm and blunt disapproval of Blake is most likely intended for the royal family. The soldiers give their lives for a country that allows them to live in abject poverty, while the countrys rulers live behind the safe luxury of the palace walls.In the fourth stanza, the speaker offers the most startling connection between two seemingly separate citizens or institutions. In this stanza Blake speaks of the "youthful harlots curse" (line14). These young, poor, and optionless girls were often the spreaders of this curse. The curse that he speaks of is venereal disease, which was a critical problem in Blake's time. The disease was spread from prostitutes to husbands who then gave it to their wives. When he speaks of how the curse "blasts the new born infants tear" (line15), he is explaining how the disease is spread from the mother to her newborn child. Again, as earlier in the p...
