13 July 2004

The Plague Doctor

Pardon me; this mask,
it is necessary. The spark
of the learned man should be found
in glassed eye-ports, the leather proboscis,
and penitent sack-cloth. I breathe a bouquet
of camphor, posy, and juniper-oil;
intestinal sweetness to displace the Miasma.
the corrupting breath of this sin-lost earth.

My craft was known a thousand years before,
but perhaps not for much longer. I walk
my appointed rounds, for something less than coin,
and deliver you to the Gates
in the best of health. Alas!
We do but His will, and I no less.

More than children flee at the sight of me.
but peering over Death's shoulder
one could do worse than to look the part
of a clever squawk. Yes? But this is false.
If the clothes make the man, then
the crown makes the throne; and
as a man's home is his castle, then
by God I am the King of Crows.
Corvus Rex.   It is fit that they fear
my ignoble slipper.

All down this street, doors bolted and barred,
as though I were the pauper-wagon,
heavy laden with a stiff cord
bound for that common, quick-limed pit.
But for learning! When they stopped the ships,
I said, Maude, go to your garden
and cut the shrubs for lavender-wood.

Ripen the buboes with warm horse-soil,
and then a lance. Draw but two pints blood
by leech; or if the sick be too weak,
then a whelp that is younger than the Plague,
placed on his chest, shall draw out the illness
and die in his stead. Never was a Bitch so like Christ.

I no longer advise the mercury bath,
or sweating in a kiln, though by such methods we have seen
some previous success. Mistrust any man,
these days, who lacks ambergris in his pomander.

Last month we sealed up with bricks
an infected house, and all within. They are quiet now.
It... seemed an idea at the time.

Last week, two diggers saw a service in health,
and succumbed before they could fill the grave.

I have seen skin cave in
like the timbers of a wormy ship;
voices fail from crying for Mercy,
or cursing all the names of angels,
one by one... though the man went too quick
to make much headway in the lesser Seraphs.

I take such things not deeply, or in any particular color.
For greater contempt, listen in the squares:
the unattended wells, the pastures long and wild;
the stillness at the docks. The silence
of towns and City indict me by name;
and they pull at my coat as I make my walks.

Could these hands fail the Lord? With all of Christian
and Heathen knowledge to bear,
the Bradfords passed within a week
All that they owned or touched, we burned.
the brown haze glowing from beneath,
reflected in our faces. Our prayers like pagans
may have gone to the Fire itself,
to some primal form of cleansing.
The end of the world,
it can drive a man to heresy:

Yea, but the flies shall outnumber the dead always;
and the darkness of our fears shall rule forever;
and the name of our Alchemical Lord
be spoken always. Amen.   And I must work.