LI. George Chapman. A Description of Fever. Edward Farr, ed. 1847. Select Poetry, Chiefly Sacred, of the Reign of King James the First

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of King James the First. 1847.

A Description of Fever

LI. George Chapman


UP to her left side leapt infernall Death,
His head hid in a cloud of sensuall breath;
By her sat furious anguish, pale despight,
Murmure and sorrowe, and possest affright,
Yellow corruption, marrow-eating care;	5
Languor, chill trembling, fits irregulare;
Inconstant choller, public-voic’d complaint,
Relentles rigor, and confusion faint;
Frantick distemper, and hare-ey’d unrest,
And short-breath’d thirst, with th’ ever burning breast.	10
A wreath of adders bound her trenched browes,
Where torment ambush’d lay with all her throws;
Marmarian lyons, fring’d with flaming manes,
Drew this grym furie, and her brood of banes:
Then burnt her bloud-shot eyes, her temples yet	15
Were cold as ice, her neck all drown’d in swet;
Palenes spred all her breast, her life’s heat stung;
The mind’s interpreter, her scorched tongue,
Flow’d with blew poison; from her yawning mouth
Rheums fell, like spouts fil’d from the stormy south;	20
Her swoln throte rattled, warm’d with life’s last spark,
And in her salt jawes painfull coughs did bark;
Her teeth were stain’d with rust; her sluttish hand
She held out, reeking like a new-quencht brand;
In her left hand a quenchless fire did glow,	25
And in her right palm freez’d Sithonian snow.