Old England

There is snow falling, and it's cold underfoot,
The kerosene lamps burn, the air is thick with soot,
The poor are all huddled, and trying to keep warm,
Death in this harshness, is all part of the norm.

A stagecoach clops past, the driver whips at his horse,
Around and down streets, steering his own course,
Statues all around, of men both past and of present,
The rich are still hunting the fox and the pheasant.

The Thames snaking through, this huge major place,
The buildings stand tall, an industrialised face,
The bridges that span, all elegant in stone,
A place dark and dirty, how quick it has grown.

Events in its future, are impossible to foresee,
A catastrophic fire, that started in a bakery,
Three hundred years earlier, in a time not so vague,
An outbreak with fatal consequences, the cursed Black Plague.