THE DANCE ROUND THE PLAGUE-PIT.

"TWAS when the plague was mowing
God's creatures down in heaps,
That five good men of the Temple
Awoke from their drunken sleeps,
And flask in hand, and arm in arm,
Went over the fields together,
To see the plague-pit at Mary-la-bonne,
In the bright and golden weather.

They strolled along, and at every stile
Drank to some beauty's health;

And on their knees (good Lord, to see

Such uses made of wealth!)

They pledged the king, and toasted the duke,

And hailed the Muses nine;

death-bell tolling

At

every

Held

On the green grass and the cowslip flowers The sad, calm sunshine slept;

Then one laughed out, and another sighed,
And a third man fairly wept:

For one had lost his wife and child,
And one his younger brother;

A third had fled but yesterday

From the black corse of his mother.

And when the milk-girls singing passed,
They kissed them one and all:
"We are Death's five good brothers,
Very good men and tall."

They flourished their swords and capered,
And such mad antics played:
Thinking them madmen broke away,
Fast flew each milking-maid.

'Twas very quiet in the old churchyard;

The bees in the nettle flowers Moved not; the swallows flew

Silent between the showers. But the chasm, black and gaping, No cloud or sunshine lit:

It struck them cold to the heart and bone

To see the path to it.

Trodden like any highway

Over the meadow grass,

Where the dead-cart wheels by night and day,

Creak rumbling as they pass.

Through suburb road and village street,

Where playing boys stand still,

Where ploughmen stop to hear the bell,

And the white face stares from the mill.

Oh, how they laugh to see the pit
So black and deep below!

Yet above the sky was blue and clear,
And the clouds were all of a glow.
And the sunrise, bright and rosy,
Turned the distant roofs to flame;
And one looked long, with pallid cheeks,
And called the rest by name.

One of the band was grey and wan,
Another was fresh and fair,

And on his comely shoulders fell

A flood of dark brown hair.
A third was sour and sneering,
Thin lip, and cold grey eye;
The last were fat-cheeked gluttons,
Who dreaded much to die.

"I see the old curmudgeon,"

Cried one, with a drunken scream,
And flung his glass at the mocking eyes
Of the dead, that glisten and gleam.
"My father turned me over

To beg or rob on the road;
Good-day, old lad, with the drooping jaw,
D'ye like your new abode?”

“I swear it moves,” cried one, aghast,
And let his full glass fall:

"Oh, God! if my gentle brother Will
Should be there at the bottom of all !
They writhe-egad, they struggle—
Like fish in a bellying net;
I'd rather than forty shillings
We never here had met."

“There's Chloe yonder, sleeping,

Her arms round a dead man's neck;

I call her twice, and kiss my hand,

But she comes not at my beck, Her cheeks are still warm crimson, The rouge is not washed off,

But her curls are lost, and the bald-pate hag Is fit for a sexton's scoff."