The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre · Thomas Sprat
XVII.
So strong the heat, so strong the torments were, They like some mighty burden bear The lightest covering of Air. All Sexes and all Ages do invade The bounds which Nature laid, The Laws of modesty which Nature made. The Virgins blush not, yet uncloath’d appear, Undress’d do run about, yet never fear. The pain and the disease did now Unwillingly reduce men to That nakedness once more, Which perfect health and innocence caus’d before. No sleep, no peace, no rest, Their wandring and affrighted minds possest; Upon their souls and eyes, Hell and Eternal horrour lies, Unusual shapes, and images, Dark pictures, and resemblances Of things to come, and of the World below, O’re their distemper’d fancies goe: Sometimes they curse, sometimes they pray unto The Gods above, the Gods beneath; Sometimes they cruelties, and fury breath, Not sleep, but waking now was sister unto death.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.