Foggy first paper

I earned the highest grade in class for the first paper: B-. Better than a C, but not by much. Ugh, who am I kidding?! Gotta kick it into high gear if I'm going to do well in this course. Unfortunately I'm as dense as a holiday fruit cake when it come to this stuff. I read a poem and think, "Oh, that's lovely." Then, when we dissect the piece in class I think, "WTF?! Syphilis, that was about syphilis? What the hell did I just read? How, I, ... um... but, wait, ... really? Oh, yes, I see it now. Hmm, syphilis. Well, um, that was the day. Those early years must have been a bitch. Yeah for modern medicine." See, dense like London fog. Oh, that's just my subtle reference to the poem:


London

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

William Blake, 1794


Sooooooo painfully obvious AFTER the fact. When, oh when, will this stuff make sense to me. I worry that it never will. Sure, sometimes a rose is just a rose, but what about ALL the other times when it's not. How will I know the difference? How many times will I have to read the same piece over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over before finally, finally a little light peeks through and the spiders retreat and I see it for what it is. Oh, that's lovely. London fog.