Is there imagery in "London" by William Blake?

I wander thro' each charter'd
street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does
flow. 

And mark in every face I
meet

Marks of weakness, marks of
woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every
Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I
hear 

How the Chimney-sweepers
cry

Every blackning Church
appalls, 

And the hapless Soldiers
sigh

Runs in blood down Palace
walls 

But most thro' midnight streets I
hear

How the youthful Harlots
curse

Blasts the new-born Infants
tear 

And blights with plagues the Marriage
hearse 

There is a great deal of imagery in
"London," but it is of a very unusual kind. The images are best described as "surrealistic." They
call to mind the paintings of Salvador Dali, especially the blood running down Palace walls.
Blake makes the London of his day seem like a hell on earth. Another painter they call to mind
is Hieronymus Bosch. Blake was a painter himself, and he produced fantastic works drawn from an
imagination akin to that of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. Yet another artist who comes
to mind is William Hogarth, a contemporary of Blake, best known for his etchings and engravings
depicting life among the lower classes in London in the 18th
century.

Some of the images in the poem are the
following:

"Marks of weakness, marks of woe." Perhaps
only Blake could perceive these marks in every single face he saw in a crowded metropolis like
London. We can still see such marks in some people's faces in any big American city, but not in
every face.

"The mind-forged manacles I hear." He could
see the manacles in people's voices. He sees what he hears. That is, his
auditory sense is somehow connected to his visual sense. It was the French philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the writers who helped inspire the French Revolution, who wrote the
famous words, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." How does everyone come to wear
chains? It must be because they are captives of their own
minds. 

"How the Chimney-sweepers cry / Every blackning
Church appalls." Here again what he hears becomes something he sees. What he sees is all the
churches, which are getting increasingly blacker from the soot produced by coal smoke of homes
and factories, looking frightened, appalled, backing away in horror from the spectacle of the
little children who earn their livings by climbing in and out of dirty chimneys, getting blacker
and blacker themselves, and dying at an early age of lung disease. The blackening churches seem
like living beings. Their windows are like wide-open eyes staring in horror at the scene Blake is
painting with words. These churches are ineffectual in changing the miserable lives of the
Londoners, who are addicted to beer and gin as anesthetics and
soporifics. 

"How the youthful Harlots curse / Blasts the
newborn Infants tear / And blights with plagues the marriage Hearse." And again the real curses
he hears make him see the infant's tears already contaminated with syphilis germs and the bride
and groom going off to make more infants who will likewise be infected because the groom has been
consorting with diseased young prostitutes and will pass his disease on to his wife and her
babies.