Diurnally grow more distraught and distress’d,
And doom’d at hotels in succession to feed
On food that they loathe, and can never digest.
Whilst worse than all else, there is death in the air,
And rumours the stoutest of hearts to appal,
As each Galignani increases the scare,
And dread of the Cholera broods over all!
And then when at night I retire to my bed—
To my own cosy bed in my big airy room—
I think of those friends who from London have fled