Image – author’s own
We didn’t know we didn’t want it
Until we’d passed it all around
We didn’t know how to stop it
So many six feet under ground
Our homes they began to empty
Some tried to run far away
The brave ones locked the village down
Others fell to their knees to pray
The vicar held services in the fields
The church was locked up tight
Still the sickness danced in the air
Giving us death deep in the night
We saw not a soul in fourteen months
Our dead in our gardens now rest
The streets have been emptied of laughter and joy
But we are alive, so we must be blessed
*****
Tonight over on dVerse, Merril is our genial host and has asked to write on the theme of giving. I learned a new thing, that the Tuesday after US Thanksgiving is known as Giving Tuesday when people often donate to charitable organisations and non-profits.
Now… true to type, I have at first sight opted for the giving, or passing around, of something unpleasant – disease. My poem is inspired by the village of Eyam in Derbyshire which was infected by the Great Plague in 1665, after a parcel of infected cloth was delivered from London to the village tailor. Under the leadership of the rector, Reverend William Mompesson and his predecessor, Reverend Thomas Stanley, the village took measures to prevent the plague spreading to the surrounding area and also to limit, where possible, spread of disease within the village.
Of the 800 people living in the village, 260 died. If it hadn’t been for the brave actions the community took, the surrounding areas could have been at least as badly affected as Eyam. This is the real gift behind my poem.
The photo above is a window in the village church, telling the story of Eyam and the Great Plague. If you wold like to know more, please check out the village website here.
If you would like to read more poems on the theme of giving, please hop over to dVerse and enjoy! You could also take part if the mood strikes you!
Freya Writes... 
I really love this, and as soon as I saw the photo and started reading, I thought of Eyam. I know of it from the novel by Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders. (A friend of mine, also a historian, read it on my recommendation, and later visited the town.) This is a wonderful response to the prompt (though I think you forgot to use some form of give in this, or I missed it.)
You are correct – I used the theme but forgot to include some form of gift (I reworded the poem several times and it got lost in the rewrite!). That wasn’t intentional – sorry!
I assumed that was the case. 😊 The word was actually “give” though, not gift. Perhaps you can stick it in the title.
I have inserted giving in the third stanza… 🙂
Thank you! 😊
Very interesting. Thanks for the notes as well
much🖤love
Thank you – and you’re welcome!
A wonderful poem. Very well written. I thought at first your were talking about Covid-19. A great backstory for your poem. I loved it.
Thank you!
You are welcome.
Gotta admit that’s a take on giving that hadn’t crossed my mind, which in a way is surprising since I just got over an evil germ myself. So well written. That first stanza is a perfect set-up for an epic.
Thank you so much!
Thank you for this taste of English history, Freya. Thanks also for the background notes. A very good friend of mine is from Derbyshire, but I got to know her when she moved to Norfolk. It’s astonishing how easily the Great Plague was passed on in that parcel of infected cloth. I love the photo of the stained glass window. The rhythm and rhyme are perfect for a narrative poem. These lines are particularly evocative:
‘Still the sickness danced in the air
Stealing our health in the night’.
Thank you so much. It’s quite astounding, yes. I first read ‘A Parcel of Patterns’ by Jill Paton Walsh about Eyam when I was a little girl and had been haunted by the village’s story ever afterwards.
Living in Derbyshire I’m familiar with the story but you wove a very fine poem out of it
Thank you Laura!
This story was revived during the pandemic – good take on it…
Thank you
That level of giving, and the story behind it reminded me of the great book “The Plague” by Albert Camus… the whole town closed down to save other towns and the surroundings just as in this real case…
Ah yes!
Great poem and thanks for the notes, Freya!
Thank you – and you’re welcome!
Those were certainly were dark times Freya, I’m so glad they’re essentially behind us, though some caution is still wise.
I’ve heard this story before, but you have given it life. (K)
Thank you so much!