“The Norfolk and Portsmouth Dead.”,Library of Virginia,Wednesday

This poem titled "The Norfolk and Portsmouth Dead" commemorates the victims of the yellow fever epidemic that devastated both of those Virginia cities in 1855. One stanza reads:

NORFOLK and PORTSMOUTH! cities doom'd!

Your streets were still'd, your people tomb'd!

For the Death Angel rode the blast,

And broke his vials as he pass'd.

Penned by the anonymous poet, "Peasant Bard," this poem was included on a broadside depicting the tragic events that took place worldwide in 1855—among them, the lethal yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk and Portsmouth.