"I feed the souls of men
Henceforth, and not their bodies!"--yet
Their sharp, pinched features, now and then,
Stole in between him and his Book,
And filled him with a vague regret.
Now on that region fell a blight:
The corn grew cankered in its sheath;
And from the verdurous uplands rolled
A sultry vapor fraught with death,--
A poisonous mist, that, like a pall,
Hung black and stagnant over all.
Then came the sickness,--the malign
Green-spotted terror, called the Pest,
That took the light from loving eyes,
And made the young bride's gentle breast
A fatal pillow. Ah! the woe,
The crime, the madness that befell!
In one short night that vale became
More foul than Dante's inmost hell.
Men cursed their wives; and mothers left
Their nursing babes alone to die,
And wantoned, singing, through the streets,
With shameless brow and frenzied eye;
And senseless clowns, not fearing God,--
Such power the spotted fever had,--
Razed Cragwood Castle on the hill,
Pillaged the wine-bins, and went mad.
And evermore that dreadful pall
Of mist hung stagnant over all:
By day, a sickly light broke through
The heated fog, on town and field;
By night the moon, in anger, turned
Against the earth its mottled shield.
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