Richmond Enquirer

From the London Evening Chronicle,

THE PLAGUE.

Suggested by reading Bulwer's 'Richelieu.'

By L. H. Pixson

"Bring out your dead!"—'tis the ritual's cry!
The wagon is hollow and waiting nigh:
Can Pity or Mercy, or Love prevail?
"Ay, "bring out your dead"
Not a word could be said:
The Plague will not listen to Sorrow's tale.

"Bring out your dead?"—the bodies are not cold:
Their widow's fond caresses clasped in their fold;
Let me get them a coffin, I'll dig them a grave.

Thou art sickening—thy breath
Is receding to death: —
The Plague will not heed whom to succour or save.

"Bring out your dead!"—that's a fruitless sigh—
The babe and the child together lie;
They were dear to my heart, they were precious and true:
Bring them, I hurl them—in the heap,
They will quietly sleep:
And the Plague, lovely woman, is calling me too.

"Bring out your dead!" let the coffins stay
The wagon is stopping—woe hurry away
And my uncle is rich, he will leave me his realty
In a thousand line
If my face be not thin

Lest favor be got rid

.— are

Ere the midnight,—the Plague does not travel past health.
"Bring out your dead!"—we are going to pray;
No priest can we purchase, the masses to say.
We were yesterday married—so soon must we die?
Love and Beauty, they go
To the charnel below :—
The Plague does not care who together shall lie.

"Bring out your dead!"—both the Friar and Clerk,
We have taken with cross, book and band in the dark;
The Nun and the Lady are vaulted alike;
From the Bridge to St. John
All the orders are gone,
And the soldier has fallen by his halberd and pike.

"Bring out your dead!"—throw his armour aside;
Let the weapons be moved with his dresses of pride;
Strip the gold and the jewels, the purchaser's dead;—
Even the wagon so high
Has no driver to ply
To the mountain of flesh by mortality fed.

"Bring out your dead!"—on the Thames, at the Hall;
From the Gates to the stairs, from the Work to the Wall,
Where a spot can be found,
"Tis infection's ground;
And it matters not, living, who hector'd or smiled.

"Bring out your dead!" the dead cannot hear;
The streets are in darkness, and silent and drear;
The houses are void, and the shutters are fast: —
Both the rich and the poor
Have been brought to the door,
And the Plague, together, are buried at last.