describes the city of London during a dark time using a rather simple alternating line rhyming pattern that mirrors the pace of the speaker walking the streets of London. The poem is powerful from its effective use of repetition and through the allusions that are presented throughout. It is essential to know that the poem is alluding to the London of the late 1700s which at the time was stricken with poverty. There was also a large gap between the wealthy and everyone else in London. The speaker constantly alludes to the suffering that the people of London endure by describing the atrocities he sees as he wanders through the streets. The tension in the poem is London decaying right before the speaker's eyes.