The Pestilent Flea (1665 London Plague Poem In The Style Of Dr. Seuss) Poem by Nick John Whittle

If you visit to London at this time of the year
You'll see a green place called Charterhouse Square;
No pleasant-er place of pure green will you find
For a sit and a sigh, and a head full of mind.
Yet it's here in the Square that this story begins;
A story so scary it'll goose-bump your shins,
For its here, buried deep in the odds and green sods,
You'll find more than 50,000 plague-ridden bods.

So allow me to tell you the gruesomest tale
While you sip on your gruesomest elderflower tea
For it starts with a ship, from Holland it sails,
Upon which was a Pestilent Louse and a Flea.

‘Twas the sharpest of winters in 1665
But all of the city was fresh and alive;
The butchers, the bakers and goldsmiths did trade,
And folks were just pleased to be out of the grave.
Then arrived a Dutch barge with a bale of cotton
For Lord Calico who demanded a chintzy bottom
And out hopped the Flea and out crawled the Louse
And off to St Giles they searched for a house.

They lodged with a gent and his lovely old wife,
Who spent all her time cutting cheese with a knife.
But soon enough Flea thought he ought to have supper
So he bit the old lady while she brewed up a cuppa.

Well Monday she was well, quite full of high spirits
But Tuesday quite sick and low spirited she ‘came,
With flushes and boils and dizzying cruets
Then unctuous umbagoes and a bad case of spew-its.
On Wednesday she woke feeling very much better,
So decided to write to her doctor a letter.
But before she could finish the lines in her head
I'm sorry to say that she dropped down straight dead.

You should not think the Flea is completely to blame,
(Although, over time, it's gotten a bad name) ,
For it and the Louse had in their wee bodies
The tiniest of beings for whom death was a hobby.

And with this marvel of Nature in mind,
You'd do well to imagine the scene of a kind,
With the Flea and the Louse hop-crawling away
From person to person, all night and all day.
For 362 days of the year
The Flea and the Louse caused havoc and fear.
The dead piled up and the gravediggers toiled,
And they toiled until all of their toilers were foiled.

The worst was September; the city went numb
When 7,000 people in a week were struck dumb.
It couldn't be stopped, it couldn't be squeezed:
The Louse and the Flea brought the place to its knees!

Come February the fifth, sixteen-sixty-six
The number of dead did begin to desist,
And though there were outbreaks over here and there
King Charles (the Second) thought it safest to bear.

Then, Lo and Behold, as the city got settled
A baker was baking his bread in a kettle
When he tripped and landed head first in his oven
And cursed his bad luck ‘cause he only had gloves on.
Before they all knew it, the whole of the town
Was engulfed in a terrible fiery frown.
But some will still say, ‘twas lucky, you see,
For the fire rid the city of the Louse and the Flea.'