An attempt at the first page.

Flu and the People

Like a strangler going about the land,
Beating a drum, a scythe in his hand,
with a fearful booming of his dread tatoo,
deepest black is veiled the flu.

Into every house it goes
And cuts down sheaves in bloody rows –
Pretty girls who won’t grow old
And many a lad though e’er so bold.

The people cry out in their need
loud to all of those who lead:
Why delay? Protect us from death -
what shall we be who struggle for breath?

You have the duty, you have the power –
Be a man now cometh the hour.
We tell you this: no more shirking,
do your job, come on, get working!

It’s a scandal, what they do, the fools,
Where are the bans? Where are the rules?
People sing and dance, boozing steady -
Are there not enough dead already?

Our rulers took advice of all kinds
Over and over all in their minds -
What do we need to do right now?
And o they had such worried brows.

And see - the effort has been repaid,
From that thought a solution made:
soon it began, unusual and heavy,
raining bans constant and steady.