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 feet we flee:--
Snatch from the hell and the Enemy's breath,
From the Prince of the Air, from the terror by night that cometh:--
From the Black Death, Christ save us!
The black black Death!

_That foul monster_; The Lernaean Hydra of Greek legend.

_From the marshes_; The drought which preceded the plague in England, and
may have predisposed to its reception, was followed by mist, in which the
people fancied they saw the disease palpably advancing.

_From Cathaya_; The plague was heard of in Central Asia in 1333; it
reached Constantinople in 1347.