Churchill's flu poem

摘要

The Winston Churchill Museum contains a poem on the Russian flu pandemic of the 1890s written by Churchill when age 15, towards the end of his school days at Harrow. That poem is reproduced below, and it records features probably common to all pandemics. Firstly, that the virulence of infection usually diminishes with time and extension of a pandemic: "Yet Father Neptune strove rightwell To moderate this plague of Hell, And thwart it in its course; And though it passed the streak of brine [the English Channel] And penetrated this thin line, It came with broken force,"