The Poems of William Blake
Explain this passage
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
This is classic anaphora or the repetition of phrases at the beginning of clauses. There is a sense of constriction or being bound (forg'd manacles) through the mind. My guess is the mind relates to the world around the speaker. Perhaps the industrial revolution? Blake never tells us but I think this refers to the prison-like circumstances that the poor had to endure at the time.