The nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosey" is a rhyme about the plague. 
Infected people with  the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring 
around the rosey"), these sores would smell very badly so common folks 
would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that
it would cover the smell of the sores ("a pocket full of posies").   
Furthermore, people who died from the plague would be burned so as to 
reduce the possible spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall 
down").