Jane Kenyon: The Good Steward

Fever!

Having just written about the Great Plague in London 1665, I've now come across a poem: Pestilence, written by American poet Philip Morin Frenau in response to the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic that wiped out 5,000 citizens of Philadelphia between August 1st and November 9th, although, by the end of September, 2,000 had fled the city. Those left, not quite knowing what they were dealing with, tried such 'remedies' as bloodletting; holding camphor-soaked cloths, and the use of Thieves' Oil. It was only the coming of cold weather that killed off the mosquitoes that had caused the virus to spread, that brought a halt to the contagion (tho' this wasn't fully understood until the 19th century).

I also discovered that Frenau had experienced being captured by the British and incarcerated in a prison-ship, in 1781, for 6 weeks, which had nearly killed him; emerging at the end 'almost a skeleton'. 

Enforced Lock-Down & a contagious virus - at different times in his life. 

The following poem was written in August 1793:

Pestilence [Philip Freneau - 1752-1832]

Hot, dry winds forever blowing,
Dead men to the grave-yards going:
      Constant hearses,
      Funeral verses;
Oh! what plagues—there is no knowing!

Priests retreating from their pulpits!—

Some in caves, and some in cole-pits

      Snugly hiding,

      There abiding

’Till the town is rid of culprits.

Doctors raving and disputing,

Death's pale army still recruiting—
What a pother
One with t'other!

Some a-writing, some a-shooting.

Nature's poisons here collected,

Water, earth, and air infected—
O, what pity,
Such a City,

Was in such a place erected!

I particularly like it when a subject I'm pursuing has several other spin-offs, especially if it spans hundreds of years. I was intrigued to come across another American writer, Laurie Halse Anderson, who, in 2000, wrote: Fever, 1793: