During the plague I came into my own. <br />It was a time of smoke-pots in the house <br />Against infection. The blind head of bone <br />Grinned its abuse <br /> <br /> <br />Like a good democrat at everyone. <br />Runes were recited daily, charms were applied. <br />That was the time I came into my own. <br />Half Europe died. <br /> <br /> <br />The symptoms are a fever and dark spots <br />First on the hands, then on the face and neck, <br />But even before the body, the mind rots. <br />You can be sick <br /> <br /> <br />Only a day with it before you’re dead. <br />But the most curious part of it is the dance. <br />The victim goes, in short, out of his head. <br />A sort of trance <br /> <br /> <br />Glazes the eyes, and then the muscles take <br />His will away from him, the legs begin <br />Their funeral jig, the arms and belly shake <br />Like souls in sin. <br /> <br /> <br />Some, caught in these convulsions, have been known <br />To fall from windows, fracturing the spine. <br />Others have drowned in streams. The smooth head-stone, <br />The box of pine, <br /> <br /> <br />Are not for the likes of these. Moreover, flame <br />Is powerless against contagion. <br />That was the black winter when I came <br />Into my own.<br /><br />Anthony Evan Hecht<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tarantula-or-the-dance-of-death/
