Page:Village pestilence.pdf/4

4 The Merchant, musing on his success, hung

Across his counter, or, with some shrewd friend

Whom lack of labour furnish’d with an hour,

Convers’d with pertness on the mighty things

That would be done in politics and trade.

The matron ply’d her thrift, the buxom maid

Before her toilet self-adoring stood

Adjusting matters for the coming ball.

The thoughtless stripling, who suppos’d that life

Was made of sunshine and uninjur’d health,

Play’d off his little wicked pranks and jokes

On dizzy bacchanal, whose muddy head

Held frequent converse with his miry feet.

So things went on; so had they gone before.

The vil'age seem’d all happiness and glee

And flush’d with hope of pleasures yet to come;

And ev’n the sinking sun appear’d replete

With smiles benignant from the fount of heav’n

That promis’d long felicity to man.

When lo! the shriek of terror, uncouth sound,

From yonder hovel wildly pierc’d the ear;

Its humble master, as by magic kill’d,

Had ceas’d to live, and scarcely knew he ail’d!

Another shriek proclaim'd another death!

Another! yea, a fourth! The plague went on!

Amazement spread! Conjecture, thin as air,

With many a ghostly shadow in her train,

Rose up to solve the problem why they died;

'Twas in the atmosphere—'Twas in the clothes—

The food—the blood—the lungs—the mind—’twas fear—