But yesterday receiu’de whole swarmes
Of frighted English: Lord and Lowne,
Lawyer, and Client, Courtier, Clowne,
All sorts did to thy buildings fly,
As to the safest Sanctuary.
And he that through thy gates might passe,
His feares were lockt in Towers of brasse,
Happie that man: now happier they
That from thy reach get first away:
As from a shipwrack, to some shore:
As from a lost field, drownd in gore:
As from high Turrets, whose Ioints faile:
Or rather from, some loathsome Iaile:
But note heau’ns Iustice, they by flying
That would cozen Death, and saue a dying,
How like to chaffe abroad th’are blowne,
And (but for scorne) might walke vnknowne;
Like to plumde Estridges they ride,
Or like Sea-pageants, all in pride
Of Tacklings, Flags, and swelling Sailes,
Borne on the loftiest waues, that veiles
His purple bonnet, and in dread
Bowes downe his snowie curled head,
So from th’infected citie fly
These Swallowes in their Gallantry,
Looking that wheresoe’re they light,
Gay Sommer, (like a Parasite)
Should waite on them, and build’em bowers
And crowne their nests with wreathed flowers,
And Swaynes to welcome them should sing
And daunce, as for their Whisson King:
Feather of Pride, how art thou tost?
How soone are all thy beauties lost?
How casely golden hopes vn-winde?
The russet boore, and leatherne hinde,
That two daies since did sinck his knee,
And (all vncouered) worshipt thee,
Or being but poore, and meanely cloathed,
Was either laught to scorne or loathed,
Now thee he loathes, and laughes to scorne,
And tho vpon thy back be worne,
More Sattin than a kingdomes worth,
He barrs his doore, and thrusts thee forth:
And they whose pallat Land nor Seas,
Whome fashions of no shape could please,
Whome Princes haue (in ages past)
For rich attires, and sumptuous wast,
Neuer come neere: now sit they rownd
And feede (like beggers) on the grownd,
A field their bed, whose dankish Sheetes
Is the greene grasse: And he that meetes
The flatrings Fortune, does but lie
In some rude barne, or loathsome stie:
Forsooke of all, floured, forlorne:
Owne brother does owne brother scorne,
The trembling Father is vndone,
Being once but breath’d on by his sonne;
Or, if in this sad pilgrimage
The hand of vengeance fall in rage,
So heauy vpon any’es head
Striking the sinfull body dead.
O shame to ages yet to come!
Dishonor to all Christendome!
In hallowed ground no heaped gold
Can buy a graue; nor linnen sold
To make (so farre is pittie fled)
The last apparell for the dead:
But as the fashion is for those
Whose desperare handes the knot vnlose
Of their owne liues, In some hye-way
Or barren field, their bones they lay,
Euen such his buriall is; And there
Without the balme of any teare,
Or pomp of Souldiers, But (ô griefe!)
Dragd like a Traitor or some thiefe
At horses tailes, hee’s rudely throwne,
The coarse being stuck with flowers by none,
No bells (the dead mans Confort) playing,
Nor any holy Churchman saying
A Funerall Dirge: But swift th’are gon,
As from some noysome cation
O desolate Citie! now thy wings
(Whose shadowe hath bene lou’d by Kings)
Should feele sick feathers on each side,
Seeing thus thy sonnes (got in ther pride)
And heate of plenty, In peace borne,
To their owne Nation left a scorne:
Each cowheards feares a Ghost him haunts,
Seeing one of thine inhabitants,
And does a Iew, or Turke prefer,
Before that name of Londoner;
Would this were all: But this black Curse
Doing ill abroad, at home does worse,
For in thy (now dispeopled) streetes,
The dead with dead, so thickly meetes,
As if some Prophets voice should say
None shall be Citizens, but they.
Whole housholds; and whole streets are stricken,
The sick do die, the sound do sicken,
And Lord haue mercy vpon vs, crying
Ere Mercy can come forth, th’are dying.
No musick now is heard but bells,
And all their tunes are sick mens knells;
And euery stroake the bell does toll,
Vp to heauen it windes a soule:
Oh, if for euery coarse that’s laide
In his cold bed of earth, were made
A chyme of belles, if peales should ring
For euery one whom death doth sting,
Men should be deaffe, as those that dwell
By Nylus fall; But now one Knell,
Giues with his Iron voyce this doome,
That twentie shall but haue one roome;
There friend, and foe, the yong and old,
The freezing coward, and the bold:
Seruant, and maister: Fowle and faire:
One Liuery weare, and fellowes are
Sailing along in this black fleete,
And at the New Graues-end do meete,
Where Church-yards banquet with cold cheere,
Holding a feast once in ten yeere,
To which comes many a Pilgrym worme,
Hungry and faint, beat with the storme
Of galping Famine, which before
Onely pickt bones, and had no more,
But now their messes come so fast,
They know not where, or which to tast;
For before (Dust to Dust) be spoken,
And throwne on One, more Graues be broken.
Thou Iealous man I pittie thee,
Thou that liu’st in hell to see
A wantons eye cheapening the sleeke
Soft Iewels, of thy faire wiues cheeke,
My verse must run through thy cold heart,
Thy wife has playd the womans part
And lyen with Death: but (spite on spite)
Thou must endure this very night
Close by her side the poorest Groome,
In selfe-same bed, and selfe-same roome:
But ease thy vext soule, thus behold
There’s one, who in the morne with gold
Could haue built Castells: now hee’s made
A pillow to a wretch, that prayde
For halfe-penny Almes, (with broken lim)
The Begger now is aboue him;
So he that yesterday was clad
In purple robes, and hourely had
Euen at his fingers becke, the fees
Of bared heads, and bending knees,
Rich mens fawnings, poore mens praiers
(Tho they were but hollow aires)
Troopes of seruants at his calling,
Children (like to subiects) falling
At his proude feete: loe, (now hee’s taken
By death,) he lies of all forsaken.
These are the Tragedies, whose sight
With teares blot all the lynes we write,
The Stage whereon the Scenes are plaide
Is a whole Kingdome: who was made
By some (most
prouident and wise)
To hide from sad Spectators eyes
Acts full of Ruth, a priuate Roome
To drowne the horror of deaths doome,
That building now no higher reare
The Pest-House standeth euery where,
For those that on their Beeres are borne,
Are nombred more, than those that mourne.
But you graue Patriots, whom Fate
Makes Rulers of this walled State,
We must not loose you in our verse,
Whose Acts we one day may rehearse
In marble nombers, that shall stand
Aboue Tymes all-destroying hand:
Only (methinkes) you do erre
In flying from your charge so farre.
So coward Captaines shrinke away,
So Shepheards do their flocks betray:
So Souldiers, and so Lambes do perish,
So you kill those, y’are bound to cherish:
Be therefore valiant, as y’are wife,
Come back again: The man that dies
Within your walls, is euen as neere
To heau’n, as dying any where;
But if (ô pardon our bold thought)
You feare your breath is sooner caught
Here then aloofe; and therefore keepe
Out of Deaths reach, whilst thousands weepe
And wring their hands for thousands dying,
No comfort neare the sick man lying:
Tis to be fear’d (you petty-kings,)
When back you spread your golden wings,
A deadlyer siege (which heauen auert)
Will your replenisht walls ingirt.
Tis now the Beggers plague, for none
Are in this Battaile ouerthrowne
But Babes and poore: The lesser Fly
Now in this Spiders web doth lie.
But if that great, and goodly swarme
(That has broke through, and felt no harme,)
In his inuenom’d snares should fall,
O pittie! twere most tragicall:
For then the Vsurer must behold
His pestilent flesh, whislt all his gold
Turns into Tokens, and the chest
(They lie in,) his infections brest:
How well heele play the Misers part
When all his coyne sticks at his heart?
Hees worth so many farthings then,
That was a golden God mongst men.
And tis the aptest death (so please
Him that breath heauen, earth, and Seas)
For euery couetous rooting Mowle
That heaues his drosse aboue his soule,
And doth in coyne all hopes repose
To die with corps, stampt full of those.
Then the rich Glutton, whose swolne eyne
Looke fiery red (being boild in wine)
And in his meales, adores the cup,
(For when he falls downe that stands vp
Therefore a goblet is his Saint,
To whome he kneeles with small constrain:,
When his owne goblet Scull flowes o’re
He worships Bacchus on all foure,
For none’s his God but Bacchus then,
Who rules and guides all drunken men,)
When He shall wake from wine, and view
More then Tauern-tokens, new
Stampt vpon his brest and armes,
In horrid throngs, and purple swarmes,
Then will he loath his former shapes,
When he shall see blew markes mock grapes,
And hang on clusters on each veine,
Like to wine-bubbles, or the graine
Of staggering sinne, which now appeares
In the December of his yeares,
His last of howers; when heele scarce haue
Time to goe sober to his Graue.
And then to die! (dreadfull to thinke!)
When all his blood is turnd to drinke:
And who knowes not this Sentence giuen,
Mongst all sinnes, none can reele to Heauen?
But woe to him that sinkes in wine,
And dyes so (without heau’d vp eyne)
And buried so! O loathsome trench!
His graue is like a Tauerne bench.
Tis fearefull, and most hard to say,
How he shall stand at latter day.
The adulterous and luxurious spirit
Pawnd to hell, and sinnes hot merrit,
That bathes in lust his leaprous soule,
Acting a deed without controll
Or thought of Deitie: through whose bloud,
Runnes part of the Infernall floud:
How will he freeze with horror? lying
In dreadfull trance before his dying:
The heate of all his dambd desires
Coold with the thought of gnashing fires:
His Ryots rauisht, all his pleasures
His marrow wasted with his treasures,
His painted harlots (whose imbraces
Cost him many siluer faces,
Whose only care and thought was then
To keepe them sure from other men)
Now they dance in Russians handes,
Lazy Leiftenents (without bandes,)
With muffled halfe-fac’de Pandars, laughing,
Whilst he lies gasping, they sit quaffing,
Smile at this plague, and black mischance,
Knowing their deaths come o’re from France:
Tis not their season now to die,
Two gnawing poisons cannot lie,
In one corrupted flesh together,
Nor can this poison then fly thether:
Theres not a Strompet mongst them all
That liues and rises by the fall,
Dreads this contagion, or her threats,
Being guarded with French Amulets.
Yet all this while thy selfe liest panting,
Thy Luxurious howers recanting,
Whilst before thy face appeares,
Th’adulterous fruit of all thy yeares
In their true forme and horrid shapes,
So many Incests, violent Rapes,
Chambered adulteries, vncleane passions,
Wanton habits, riotous fashions,
And all these Anticks drest in hell,
To dance about the passing bell;
And clip thee round about the bed,
Whilst thousand Horrors graspe thy head.
THE CURE OF THE PLAGNE.
AND therefore this infectious season
That now arrests the Flesh for Treason
Against heauens euerlasting King,
Annointed with th’eternall spring
(Of life and power) this stroke of Force,
That turnes the world into a Coarse,
Feeding the Dust with what it craues,
Emptying whole houses to fill graues,
These speckled Plagues (which our sinnes leuy)
Are as needfull as th’are heauy;
Whose cures to cite, our Muse for beares,
Tho he the Daphnean wreath that weares
(Being both Poesis Soueraigne King,
And God of medicine) bids vs sing
As boldly of those pollicies,
Those Onfets, and those Batteries,
By Phisick cunningly applied,
To beate downe Plagues (so fortified)
And of those Armes defensitiue,
To keep th’assaulted Heart aliue,
And of those wardes, and of those sleights,
Vsde in these mortall single fights,
As of the causes that commence
This ciuill warre of Pestilence,
For Poets soules should be confinde
Within no bownds, their towring mindes
Must (like the Sun) a progresse make
Through Arts immensiue Zodiake:
And suck (like Bees) the vertuous power,
That flows in learnings seuen-sold flower,
&nbs
p; Distilling forth the same agen
In sweet and wholesome Iuice to men:
But for we see the Army great
Of those whose charge it is to beat
This proud Inuader, and haue skill
In all those weapons, that do kill
Such pestilent foes, we yeeld to them
The glory of that stratagem:
To whose Oraculous voice repaire,
For they those Delphick Prophets are,
That teach dead bodies to respire
By sacred Aesculapian fire:
We meane not those pied Lunatickes,
Those bold fantastick Empirickes,
Quack-saluers, mishrump Mountebancks,
That in one night grow vp in rancks
And liue by pecking Phisickes crummes,
O hate these venemous broodes, there comes
Worse sores from them, and more strange births
Then from ten plagues, or twentie deaths:
Only this Antidote apply,
Cease vexing heauen, and cease to die.
Seeke therefore (after you haue found
Salue naturall for the naturall wound
Of this Contagion,) Cure from thence
Where first the euill did commence,
And that’s the Soule: each one purge one,
And Englands free, the Plague is gone.
THE NECESSITIE OF A PLAGUE.
YET to mixe comfortable words
Tho this be horrid, it affords
Sober gladnes, and wise ioyes,
Since desperate mixtures it destroies;
For if our thoughts sit truly trying,
The iust necessitie of dying
How needfull (tho how dreadfull) are
Purple Plagues, or Crimson warre,
We would conclude (still vrging pittie)
A Plague’s the Purge to clense a Cittie:
Who amongst millions can deny
(In rought prose, or smooth Poesie)
Of Euils, tis the lighter broode,
A dearth of people, then of foode!
And who knowes not, our Land ran o’re
With people; and was onely poore
In hauing too too many, liuing,
And wanting liuing! rather giuing
Themselues to wast, deface and spoyle,
Than to increase (by vertuous toyle)
The banckrout bosome of our Realme
Which naked birthes did ouerwhelme:
This begers famine, and bleake dearth:
When fruites of wombes passe fruites of earth,
Then Famines onely Phisick: and
The medcine for a ryotous Land
Is such a plague: So it may please
Mercies Distributer to appease,
His speckled anger, and now hide
Th’old rod of Plagues: no more to chide
And lash our shoulders and sick vaines
With Carbuncles, and shooting Blaines:
Make vs the happiest amongst men,
Immortall by our prophecing pen,
That this last lyne may truly raigne,
The Plague’s ceast, heauen is friends againe.
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 205