The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre · Thomas Sprat
XII.
Then down it went into the breast, There are all the seats and shops of life possest, Such noisome smells from thence did come, As if the stomach were a tomb; No food would there abide, Or if it did, turn’d to the enemies side, The very meat new poysons to the Plague supply’d. Next to the heart the fires came, The heart did wonder what usurping flame, What unknown furnace should On its more natural heat intrude, Strait call’d its spirits up, but found too well, It was too late now to rebell. The tainted blood its course began, And carried death where ere it ran, That which before was Natures noblest Art, The circulation from the heart, Was most destructful now, And Nature speedier did undoe, For that the sooner did impart The poyson and the smart, The infectious blood to every distant part.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.