Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-11-14
DAILY LEADER.
THE CITY AUTHORITIES TO THE
CHOLERA.

INVOCATION.
1.
Cholera. Spirit Of Orient, hall
Over the wide deep eometh a wall:
For the feI shape, that stood cloudy and vague,
Guarding hells gate, has arisen to plague,
In thy port, grimmer than famine's or wars,
Nations that send forth their cry to our shores.
Born Of the curse Of the East, to the West
Onward thou journeyest ever, o Pestl
And where thou passest, the billowing graves
Rise multitudinous, as the sea waves
Billow and roll in the ships wake, and far
Troubled like waters the peoples hearts are.
Cairo, and COnstantinople and she
Sitting in sorrow by Adria's sea;
LeghOFn, Marseilles, and the darlings of Spain,
Heap thy course thick with their myriad slain;
And the North, winter-kept, early shall be
Pale as her SHOWS, in the spring-time, with thee;
Then thou wilt rise with the breath Of the South,
Honeyed poison and bane in thy mouth,
And from the North's desolation will turn
Hither thy face, where the summer shall burn
On such a harvest as the earth bore
Ripe for a pestiience, never before
III.
Cholera, cholera, cholera, comet
Come to the city we deck for thy homei
Come TO Manhattan New York never gave
Prince, hero, charlatan, exile, or knave,
Cholera, such a Reception as we,
Queen Of mems terror! have plotted for theel
".
Come in the l~ustiest joyance Of June,
When the earth's heart is in perfectest tune
With her Creators will, and all the days
Touched with His benson, utter His praise
When from her woodland deIls Natures wild
health
Breathes over fields that are crowned with her
wealth;
Then, when contentment unutterable
In every motion of being shall dwell:
Then with thy tremors, and cholics, and cramps,
Then with thy pallors and death-bOding damps,
Come to the city we deck for thy home
Cholera, cholera, cholera, come!
V.
Come to a city Of orient filth,
Orient spirit and battle in the spilth
Nameless and loathly Of cutters that run,
Stink in the shadow and steam in the SUM
Nest in the dung-heaps that border these rills,
Ancient, eternal. and fixed as the hills
In putrid sewerage quarter the still
Host of invisible slaves of thy will
Hold in the tenement houses thy court;
Make Of the poor thy sovereign sport
Hunt them by basement, by garnet, by stair,
Whele'er they cover and lurk, hunt them therel
In the light sickening, in the dark dying,
Hunt them, and smite them, AID set their souls fly
ing.
Till from their poisonous anguish the air
Wide through the city thy power shall bear,
And on soft eouches the sick shall be strewn
Thick as they languish on straw and on stone
@ 80 ~. --
Open shall fly at the touch Of her slain;
And at all hearthstones and boards thou shalt
loom,
Presence Of terror. and sorrow, and doom
VI.
Come thou, whose terrible coming shall make
Love hard as fear, and the bridegroom forsake
Her that is stricken with death in his arms
Come, with thy rumors and endless alarms;
Make men abhoT one another make sons
mothers flying their fatherless one
Make kindred cruel to kindred, and blood
Venom to blood; let nights silence brood
On the moons heart, now beating so high
Let all the voices Of traffic be dumb
gay speech, and youths Laughter free,
Children's sweet treble, and babes babble, be
at the banquet devoted to thee;
Nought but the mourners' slow feet going by,
With the dumb wheels Of the hearses that creep,
TO Nightmares, trouble the sleep
the great city we deck for thy homei
cholera, cholera, comel
1.-THE Nation.