Distemper, 1740

Lyrics

August. Seventeen hundred and forty.
A strange quiet falls.
A melancholly, the Reverend said.
The Distemper prevails among children.

It began in Kingston, they say.
A rumor on the humid air.
Then a cough in the meeting house.
A fever in the small hours.
The room smells of camphor and sweat.
Is it God's wrath? Is it the air?
Is it invisible worms in the throat?
We had no names for the thief.
Only for the taken.

The Throat Distemper. The Canker Rash.
A white film, a struggle for breath.
And the meeting house bell
tolls for another small grave.
The ground is cold.
And the children are cold.

In Westborough, just over the line,
Reverend Parkman writes in his book.
November the twenty-eighth.
"An awful day to my poor Family."
His dear son, Ebenezer, five years old,
gone since five o'clock this morning.
His daughter Sarah, she is also very ill.
He writes, "We are in great distress."
We were all in great distress.

The Throat Distemper. The Canker Rash.
A white film, a struggle for breath.
And the meeting house bell
tolls for another small grave.
The ground is hard.
And the children are quiet.

The healthy grew weary of digging.
The pews grew lighter.
The voices missing from the hymns.
A whole generation of ghosts
sat beside their mothers.
A silence where a small hand should be.
A silence in the schoolhouse.
A silence by the hearth.

Seventeen forty.
And forty-one.
A remarkable and awful time.
We buried the future.
And waited for spring.