Yellow Jack Of '97 Poem by Samuel Alfred Beadle

With a shudder still I remember
The alarm of Yellow Jack:
Sent out in the daily number,
Of the 'Times-Democrat.'


Also the 'Daily Picayune'
Made the dreaded tidings known;
The paper venders caught the tune
And heralded it around the town.


'Here's your 'Daily Picayune,''
And 'Here's your 'Times-Democrat!''
'Paper, sir, 'Daily Picayune,'
All about the Yellow Jack!'


'At Ocean Springs and Scranton, sir,
Biloxi and ev'rywhere
Along the coast - 'Picayune,' sir?
All about the fever there!


'There 'tis, sir! a catastrophe,
Strikes our business interest square,
And leaves us a wreck in mid sea,
With fever and despair.'


'If it's fever, it's dengue,
Or malaria from lack
Of cleanliness, in a few
Coast towns. It's not Yellow Jack,'


Said all the doctors, looking wise.
But the restless feeling grew,
And all the people, with glaring eyes,
And ashen lips, said 'It's true!'


From the start business stopped, congealed,
And strong men gathered the crowd
About the public streets, to feel
The business pulse, sigh aloud;


And then to troop it out of town:
For their fancy paints so well,
Until it kinder brings them down,
To unwholesome views of (--) Well -


You understand; roasting scenes in that
Sultry country where the swell
Epidemic fiend, grim Yellow Jack,
The conductor acts so well.


You talk of being panic struck,
Routed friend and all of that;
You should see the bulletin stuck
To the alarm of Yellow Jack.


For yellow fever 'larms from press
And newsboys, can clear the earth
With inflated yells of distress
In twenty minutes without death.


And then the faithful few, who stand
At duty's post; because
They cannot escape, understand,
Prohibitory laws.


They quarantine the empty void
With a mailed guard so well,
That 'twould terrorize the alloid
Visage of the host of Hell.


Then gnaws the formidable thought,
Quarantined away from home:
This experience so dearly bought,
So vividly paints our own:


Till we see the ghost of all our hopes
Floating down the yellow stream;
Our empty homes along the copse
And grim Yellow Jack between.


And hear the stroke of the sturdy oar,
The surge of the awful wave;
As Yellow Jack trips our loved ones o'er -
The druggist into the grave.