A Mirror of Faith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Right well remember I the course
of threescore years and ten;
But like the plague-year, never one
so terrible to men.
The heav'n above was adamant,
the earth beneath was brass:
A copper haze was in the sky,
and wither'd herb and grass:
The sun by day, by night the moon,
shone out with bloody glare;
And evil spirits were abroad
to taint the wholesome air:

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All in the fields the cattle died,
the fruit upon the tree:
There were strange sights, and mighty signs,
and portents dread to see:
There fell upon the minds of men
a horror and a dread:
Ill visions haunted them by day,
ill dreams were round their bed:
A fiery sword was o'er the land,
of pale and leaden hue:
Few of such terrors men have seen,
but I remember two:
The first was slow, and sickly-hued,
and solemn to behold,
And ghastly in a ghastly sky;
and that the Plague foretold:
The next was brightly terrible,
and flash'd forth ruddy flame,
Flick'ring and quiv'ring through the air,
before the Fire it came.
From marsh and fen unwholesome steam
were rising day by day:
The air had all the hush of death,
the breeze forgot to play:

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And in the churchyards, as night fell,
a sheeted ghost came out,
And pointed first toward the ground,
and then to those about:
Yea, and they spake of strange low calls,
that voic'd the lonely man;
And citizens look'd each on each,
and all were pale and wan:
Such are the signs that evermore
before God's Vengeance run:
Wrath is gone out before the Lord:
the plague-stroke is begun!

Then went a rumour thro' the crowd,
but none knew how nor whence;
Men's talk was of a Turkey-ship
that brought the pestilence:
And ye might meet in every street,
with remedies right sure,
And charms of power, in magic hour
infallible to cure:
But here and there the doors were nail'd
with the fearful cross of red;
The Lord Have Mercy! here and there
spoke wretchedness and dread:

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And friend scarce gave good day to friend,
and on to business past,
And marts were shut, and there were streets
whereby men hurried fast:
And plague-deaths shew'd amid the list,
though far between and few;
For them who died not of the Plague
the Spotted Fever slew:
From the Bishop's Gate to Temple Bar
press'd chariots out in haste;
And men went hurrying from the town
to lay the country waste:
Night after night, with funeral light,
the dead cart went about;
And grass was green in every street,
and there were few went out:
They digg'd a pit to hide their dead,—
they made it wide and deep,
And there they brought the plague-struck men,
and flung them in like sheep:
No words of grace, no hallow'd place,
no prayer, no chaunt, no priest,
No mourncrs; they were buried
with the burial of a beast:

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Some that in mortal agony
had writh'd upon the bed;
Some that at once, without a pang,
amidst the street fell dead:
And as the deaths came thicker on,
and wilder grew the cry,
Men's thought was, “Let us eat and drink;
to-morrow we shall die!”
They threw away all hope in God,
they threw away all dread:
For rash and prudent, each and all,
were number'd with the dead.

All thoughts and remedies of men
before God's Vengeance bow:
Now is thy time, O Holy Church!
for not of men art thou!
The Priests are in the Palace-hall,
the Priests are in the street,
The Priests go on from death to death
with never-tiring feet:

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With That Blest Food they fortify
the heart of sorrow bent:
The hard of heart they soften, they
absolve the penitent:
Yea, and their lives they held not dear,
if so God's special grace
Might but descend upon their flock,
in finishing their race.
Men that have laugh'd at battle-fields
before the Plague will quail:
Christ's soldier waxeth mightiest,
when mightiest foes assail!
A small thing seem'd it in their eyes
to yield their mortal breath;
Their wives, and sons, and all their homes
were dedicate to death:
This is the Church that men despise
at distance from the grave:
This is the Church men find in death
the only Ark to save!

The case of Mr. Mompesson, of Eyam, will probably occur to the reader's memory.