Pestilent Hands

Long after the shade of Heaven was cast,

Those fallen had begun their cries and cants

Unto thee I invoke my wrath

Gadereel vied with ministerial cants

To redeem his place in the darkness vast.

And with a scabrous, seething voice

Declared he the fourth vengeance onto man;

A grizzled bane on the land of man,

So the scythe may again rejoice.

Through your passion, save us, O Lord

Bordered in thick timber cots

The infected wailed and gasped,

In their lonesome skin they gasped,

Lymph nodes bulging like hempen knots.

The flagellants passed, and in low plainsong,

Called the firmaments to absolve their wrongs.

Exiled to roam the mangled lands.

They assumed a sordid eye,

Inside the storm of Heaven’s eye.

Untouched by a vicar’s healing hands.

Jointly they marched in self-abuse

To garner salvation from their Lord

To beseech forgiveness from their imprudent Lord

And die, repentant, with their benighted Jesus.

Death soon apprized the world

(England) 1348, felt the strain

The epidemic and its black strain

Pestilential retribution unfurled.

Unto thee I invoke my death