Aberdeen 1647 Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Aberdeen 1647

In Aberdeen in 1647,
The horrid Pest came knocking at the door
And one in four lay dead before it left
Black Death, the Plague, the revived Galor Mor
So many families riven and bereft
In April, despite all the council's rules
Death entered houses for the cruellest theft
Life leaked away in buboes and pustules
So Terror came to Aberdeen in spades
And left survivors pale and thin as ghouls

The council ordered citizens to clear
Their middens from the confines of the city
A 24 hour watch meant none drew near
Guards at the entry gates showed no one pity
A woman came from Brechin, brought the Pest
Forded the river, near the Brig o Dee
Now armed men watched the gates with steely zest
Cats & dogs were slain, beggars, ejected
Some council members, bolder than the rest
Fled to the shire, fearing to be infected
Too late, they tried to shut the stable door
For now the Pest went killing, undetected

Church services were cancelled every one
The sick and dying locked in make shift sheds
Within the links, and Castlehill, all gone
And in mass graves, they tipped the stricken dead
All citizens were then compelled to clean
Anything foul or suspect, items, beds
To drive pollution out of Aberdeen
By baring all outside, in frosty air
Seventeen hundred, under the sands, unseen
No crosses, epitaphs, erected there
The burgh bore a weighty, savage loss
The shore's Necropolis hid our despair

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