A Letter From Bedlam Poem by David Lewis Paget

They have me chained in this noisome cell
With its smells, its moans and shrieks,
No wonder they call it Bedlam for
I haven't slept in weeks,
They brought me here from the Bridewell,
For they said I was raving mad,
I swapped a cell for a place in hell
And the food in here is bad.

We're chained and beaten by loutish guards
And starved and purged as well,
Unless we vomit and take the cure
They bleed us in the cell,
I see the others who beat their heads
On posts, and the old stone wall,
Hoping to join the peaceful dead
When they have no blood at all.

The rats will nibble at hands and feet
If we sleep too deep, and soon
You'll hear the patter as hundreds scatter
About the cell in the gloom,
There are chains and shackles around my neck
My waist and my ankles too,
The only part is my beating heart
Where they can't chain me from you.

I live with the shrieks and moans and groans
Of the most demented souls,
The prostitutes in their open cells
Who squat on the sewer holes,
A guard says he will take care of you
And I know just what he means,
Be true my love, he'll take hold of you
And I know the man's unclean.

I should have minded my temper when
I was walking in the yard,
Was cursed by the devil's tempter, then
I hit the Bridewell guard,
I hang on tight to my sanity
For I never scream or shout,
And hope for the governor's lenity
That they come and let me out.

The visitors come and they poke their fun
At the lunatics in here,
They hold their noses and spit at us
And they make their feelings clear,
We're only scum in the world they're from
If the fools could only see,
That our putrid state could be their fate
In seventeen sixty-three!

6 December 2014