pasture
With a moan that is hardly a moan,
Drop, whole flocks, where they stand;
And the mother lays her, alone,
Slain by the touch of her nursing hand,
Where the household before her is strown.
--Earth, Earth, open and cover thy dead!
For they are smitten and fall who bear
The corpse to the grave with a prayerless prayer,
And thousands are crush'd in the common bed:--
--Is it Hell that breathes with an adder's breath?
Is it the day of doom, men cry, the Judge that cometh?
--'Tis the Black Death, God help us!
The black black Death.

Maid Alice and maid Margaret
In the fields have built them a bower
Of reedmace and rushes fine,
Fenced with sharp albespyne;
Pretty maids hid in the nest; and yet
Yours is one death, and one hour!
Priest and peasant and lord
By the swift, soft stroke of the air,
By a silent invisible sword,
In plough-field or banquet, fall:
The watchers are flat on the wall:--
Through city and village and valley
The sweet-voiced herald of prayer
Is dumb in the towers; the throng
To the shrine pace barefoot; and where
Blazed out from the choir a glory of song,
God's altar is lightless and bare.
Is there no pity in earth or sky?
The burden of England, who shall say?
Half the giant oak is riven away,
And the green leaves yearn for the leaves that die.
Will the whole world drink of the dragon's breath?
It is the cup, men cry, the cup of God's fury that cometh!
'Tis the Black Death, Lord help us!
The black black Death.

In England is heard a moan,
A bitter lament and a sore,
Rachel lamenting her dead,
And will not be comforted
For the little faces for ever gone,
The feet from the silent floor.
And a cry goes up from the land,
Take from us in mercy, O God,
Take from us the weight of Thy hand,
The cup and the wormwood of woe!
'Neath the terrible barbs of Thy bow
This England, this once Thy beloved,
Is water'd with life-blood for rain;
The bones of her children are white,
As flints on the Golgotha plain;
Not slain as warriors by warriors in fight,
By the arrows of Heaven slain.
We have sinn'd: we lift up our souls to Thee,
O Lord God eternal on high:
Thou who gavest Thyself to die,
Saviour, save! to Thy fe