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Home  »  The Poetical Works by William Blake  »  Why should I care for the men of Thames

William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908.

Poems from the Rossetti MS.: Earlier Poems

Why should I care for the men of Thames

WHY should I care for the men of Thames

Or the cheating waves of charter’d streams;

Or shrink at the little blasts of fear

That the hireling blows into my ear?

Tho’ born on the cheating banks of Thames,

Tho’ his waters bathèd my infant limbs,

The Ohio shall wash his stains from me:

I was born a slave, but I go to be free!