The art of preserving health: A poem

Daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy,

Hygeia1; whose indulgent smile sustains

The various race luxuriant nature pours,

And on th’ immortal essences bestows

Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend! 5

Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year,

Whether thou wanton’st on the western gale,

[Pg 2]

Or shak’st the rigid pinions of the north,

Diffusest life and vigour thro’ the tracts

Of air, thro’ earth, and ocean’s deep domain. 10

When thro’ the blue serenity of heav’n

Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host

Of pain and sickness, squallid and deform’d,

Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom,

Where in deep Erebus involv’d the fiends 15

Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death,

Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,

Swarm thro’ the shuddering air: whatever plagues

Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings

Rise from the putrid watry element, 20

The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,

That smothers earth and all the breathless winds,

Or the vile carnage of th’ inhuman field;

Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south;

Whatever ills th’ extremes or sudden change 25[Pg 3]

Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce;

They fly thy pure effulgence: they, and all

The secret poisons of avenging heaven,

And all the pale tribes halting in the train

Of vice and heedless pleasure: or if aught 30

The comet’s glare amid the burning sky,

Mournful eclipse, or planets ill-combin’d,

Portend disastrous to the vital world;

Thy salutary power averts their rage,

Averts the general bane: and but for thee 35

Nature would sicken, nature soon would die.

Without thy chearful active energy

No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings,

No more the maids of Helicon delight.

Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly-gay! 40

Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,

And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws:

[Pg 4]

“How best the fickle fabric to support

“Of mortal man; in healthful body how

“A healthful mind the longest to maintain.” 45

’Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuse

The best, and those of most extensive use;

Harder in clear and animated song

Dry philosophic precepts to convey.

Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace 50

Of nature, and with daring steps proceed

Thro’ paths the muses never trod before.

Nor should I wander doubtful of my way,

Had I the lights of that sagacious mind

Which taught to check the pestilential fire, 55

And quel the dreaded Python of the Nile.

O Thou belov’d by all the graceful arts,

Thou long the fav’rite of the healing powers,

Indulge, O Mead! a well-design’d essay,

[Pg 5]

Howe’er imperfect: and permit that I 60

My little knowledge with my country share,

Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,

And with new graces dignify the theme.

YE who amid this feverish world would wear

A body free of pain, of cares a mind; 65

Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;

Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke

And volatile corruption, from the dead,

The dying, sickning, and the living world

Exhal’d, to sully heaven’s transparent dome 70

With dim mortality. It is not air

That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,

Sated with exhalations rank and fell,

The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw

Of nature; when from shape and texture she 75

Relapses into fighting elements:

[Pg 6]

It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass

Of all obscene, corrupt, offensive things.

Much moisture hurts; but here a sordid bath,

With oily rancor fraught, relaxes more 80

The solid frame than simple moisture can.

Besides, immur’d in many a sullen bay

That never felt the freshness of the breeze,

This slumbring deep remains, and ranker grows

With sickly rest: and (tho’ the lungs abhor 85

To drink the dun fuliginous abyss)

Did not the acid vigour of the mine,

Roll’d from so many thundring chimneys, tame

The putrid salts that overswarm the sky;

This caustick venom would perhaps corrode 90

Those tender cells that draw the vital air,

In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew’d;

Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawn

In countless pores o’er all the pervious skin,

[Pg 7]

Imbib’d, would poison the balsamic blood, 95

And rouse the heart to every fever’s rage.

While yet you breathe, away! the rural wilds

Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales,

The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze

That fans the ever undulating sky; 100

A kindly sky! whose fost’ring power regales

Man, beast, and all the vegetable reign.

Find then some woodland scene where nature smiles

Benign, where all her honest children thrive.

To us there wants not many a happy seat; 105

Look round the smiling land, such numbers rise

We hardly fix, bewilder’d in our choice.

See where enthron’d in adamantine state,

Proud of her bards, imperial Windsor sits;

There chuse thy seat, in some aspiring grove 110

Fast by the slowly-winding Thames; or where

Broader she laves fair Richmond’s green retreats,

[Pg 8]

(Richmond that sees an hundred villas rise

Rural or gay.) O! from the summer’s rage

O! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides 115

Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy town

Attract thee still to toil for power or gold,

Sweetly thou mayst thy vacant hours possess

In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;

Or Greenwich, waving o’er the winding flood; 120

Or lose the world amid the sylvan wilds

Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil’d.

Green rise the Kentish hills in chearful air;

But on the marshy plains that Essex spreads

Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet. 125

For on a rustic throne of dewy turf,

With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,

Quartana there presides; a meagre fiend

Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force

Compress’d the slothful Naiad of the fens. 130[Pg 9]

From such a mixture sprung this fitful pest,

With feverish blasts subdues the sick’ning land:

Cold tremors come, and mighty love of rest,

Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and pains

That sting the burden’d brows, fatigue the loins, 135

And rack the joints, and every torpid limb;

Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweats

O’erflow; a short relief from former ills.

Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine;

The vigour sinks, the habit melts away; 140

The chearful, pure and animated bloom

Dies from the face, with squalid atrophy

Devour’d, in sallow melancholy clad.

And oft the sorceress, in her sated wrath,

Resigns them to the furies of her train; 145

The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend

Ting’d with her own accumulated gall.

[Pg 10]

In quest of sites, avoid the mournful plain

Where osiers thrive, and trees that love the lake;

Where many lazy muddy rivers flow: 150

Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll

Fix near the marshy margin of the main.

For from the humid soil, and watry reign,

Eternal vapours rise; the spungy air

For ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight 155

Of waters, pours a sounding deluge down.

Skies such as these let every mortal shun

Who dreads the dropsy, palsy, or the gout,

Tertian, corrosive scurvy, or moist catarrh;

Or any other injury that grows 160

From raw-spun fibres idle and unstrung,

Skin ill-perspiring, and the purple flood

In languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

[Pg 11]

Yet not alone from humid skies we pine;

For air may be too dry. The subtle heaven, 165

That winnows into dust the blasted downs,

Bare and extended wide without a stream,

Too fast imbibes th’ attenuated lymph

Which, by the surface, from the blood exhales.

The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essay 170

Their flexible vibrations; or inflam’d,

Their tender ever-moving structure thaws.

Spoil’d of its limpid vehicle, the blood

A mass of lees remains, a drossy tide

That slow as Lethe wanders thro’ the veins, 175

Unactive in the services of life,

Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro’

The secret mazy channels of the brain.

The melancholic fiend, (that worst despair

Of physic) hence the rust-complexion’d man 180

Pursues, whose blood is dry, whose fibres gain

[Pg 12]

Too stretch’d a tone: And hence in climes adust

So sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves,

And burning fevers glow with double rage.

Fly, if you can, these violent extremes 185

Of air; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry.

But as the power of chusing is deny’d

To half mankind, a further task ensues;

How best to mitigate these fell extreams,

How breathe unhurt the withering element, 190

Or hazy atmosphere: Tho’ custom moulds

To every clime the soft Promethean clay;

And he who first the fogs of Essex breath’d

(So kind is native air) may in the fens

Of Essex from inveterate ills revive 195

At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.

But if the raw and oozy heaven offend,

Correct the soil, and dry the sources up

[Pg 13]

Of watry exhalation; wide and deep

Conduct your trenches thro’ the spouting bog; 200

Solicitous, with all your winding arts,

Betray th’ unwilling lake into the stream;

And weed the forest, and invoke the winds

To break the toils where strangled vapours lie;

Or thro’ the thickets send the crackling flames. 205

Mean time, at home with chearful fires dispel

The humid air: And let your table smoke

With solid roast or bak’d; or what the herds

Of tamer breed supply; or what the wilds

Yield to the toilsom pleasures of the chase. 210

Generous your wine, the boast of rip’ning years,

But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,

Vapid and sunk from yesterday’s debauch,

Shrinks from the cold embrace of watry heavens.

But neither these, nor all Apollo’s arts, 215

Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky,

[Pg 14]

Unless with exercise and manly toil

You brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.

The fat’ning clime let all the sons of ease

Avoid; if indolence would wish to live. 220

Go, yawn and loiter out the long slow year

In fairer skies. If droughty regions parch

The skin and lungs, and bake the thick’ning blood;

Deep in the waving forest chuse your seat,

Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air; 225

And wake the fountains from their secret beds,

And into lakes dilate the running stream.

Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,

The moist relaxing vegetable store

Prevail in each repast: Your food supplied 230

By bleeding life, be gently wasted down,

By soft decoction and a mellowing heat,

To liquid balm; or, if the solid mass

You chuse, tormented in the boiling wave;

[Pg 15]

That thro’ the thirsty channels of the blood 235

A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow.

The fragrant dairy from its cool recess

Its nectar acid or benign will pour

To drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowl

Of keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve. 240

For with the viscous blood the simple stream

Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups

Oft dissipate more moisture than they give.

Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rolls

His horrors o’er the world, thou may’st indulge 245

In feasts more genial, and impatient broach

The mellow cask. Then too the scourging air

Provokes to keener toils than sultry droughts

Allow. But rarely we such skies blaspheme.

Steep’d in continual rains, or with raw fogs 250

Bedew’d, our seasons droop; incumbent still

A ponderous heaven o’erwhelms the sinking soul.

[Pg 16]

Lab’ring with storms in heapy mountains rise

Th’ imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades

Had left the dungeon of eternal night, 255

Till black with thunder all the south descends.

Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulge

Our melting clime; except the baleful east

Withers the tender spring, and sourly checks

The fancy of the year. Our fathers talk 260

Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene.

Good heaven! for what unexpiated crimes

This dismal change! The brooding elements

Do they, your powerful ministers of wrath,

Prepare some fierce exterminating plague? 265

Or is it fix’d in the Decrees above

That lofty Albion melt into the main?

Indulgent nature! O dissolve this gloom!

Bind in eternal adamant the winds

That drown or wither: Give the genial west 270[Pg 17]

To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly north:

And may once more the circling seasons rule

The year; not mix in every monstrous day.

Mean time, the moist malignity to shun

Of burthen’d skies; mark where the dry champain 275

Swells into chearful hills; where Marjoram

And Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;

And where the Cynorrhodon2 with the rose

For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil

Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes. 280

There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep

Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires.

And let them see the winter morn arise,

The summer evening blushing in the west;

While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind 285

O’erhung, defends you from the blust’ring north,

[Pg 18]

And bleak affliction of the peevish east.

O! when the growling winds contend, and all

The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,

To sink in warm repose, and hear the din 290

Howl o’er the steady battlements, delights

Above the luxury of vulgar sleep.

The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain

Of waters rushing o’er the slippery rocks,

Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest. 295

To please the fancy is no trifling good,

Where health is studied; for whatever moves

The mind with calm delight, promotes the just

And natural movements of th’ harmonious frame.

Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes 300

The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,

From vale to mountain, with incessant change

Of purest element, refreshing still

Your airy seat, and uninfected Gods.

[Pg 19]

Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds 305

High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides

Th’ etherial deep with endless billows laves.

His purer mansion nor contagious years

Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain, 310

Involve my hill. And wheresoe’er you build;

Whether on sun-burnt Epsom, or the plains

Wash’d by the silent Lee; in Chelsea low,

Or high Blackheath with wintry winds assail’d;

Dry be your house: but airy more than warm. 315

Else every breath of ruder wind will strike

Your tender body thro’ with rapid pains;

Fierce coughs will teize you, hoarseness bind your voice,

Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows.

These to defy, and all the fates that dwell 320[Pg 20]

In cloister’d air tainted with steaming life,

Let lofty ceilings grace your ample rooms;

And still at azure noontide may your dome

At every window drink the liquid sky.

Need we the sunny situation here, 325

And theatres open to the south, commend?

Here, where the morning’s misty breath infests

More than the torrid noon? How sickly grow,

How pale, the plants in those ill-fated vales

That, circled round with the gigantic heap 330

Of mountains, never felt, nor never hope

To feel, the genial vigor of the sun!

While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames

The verdant spring; in virgin beauty blows

The tender lily, languishingly sweet; 335

O’er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,

And autumn ripens in the summer’s ray.

[Pg 21]

Nor less the warmer living tribes demand

The fost’ring sun: whose energy divine

Dwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat 340

Glows thro’ the mass of grosser elements,

And kindles into life the pond’rous spheres.

Chear’d by thy kind invigorating warmth,

We court thy beams, great majesty of day!

If not the soul, the regent of this world, 345

First born of heaven, and only less than God!

Enough of air. A desart subject now,

Rougher and wilder, rises to my sight.

A barren waste, where not a garland grows

To bind the muse’s brow; not even a proud

Stupendous solitude frowns o’er the heath, 5

To rouse a noble horror in the soul:

But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads

Thro’ endless labyrinths the devious feet.

[Pg 26]

Farewel, etherial fields! the humbler arts

Of life; the table and the homely Gods, 10

Demand my song. Elysian gales adieu!

The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,

The generous stream that waters every part,

And motion, vigor, and warm life conveys

To every particle that moves or lives; 15

This vital fluid, thro’ unnumber’d tubes

Pour’d by the heart, and to the heart again

Refunded; scourg’d for ever round and round,

Enrag’d with heat and toil, at last forgets

Its balmy nature; virulent and thin 20

It grows; and now, but that a thousand gates

Are open to its flight, it would destroy

The parts it cherish’d and repair’d before.

Besides, the flexible and tender tubes

Melt in the mildest, most nectareous tide 25[Pg 27]

That ripening nature rolls; as in the stream

Its crumbling banks; but what the vital force

Of plastic fluids hourly batters down,

That very force, those plastic particles

Rebuild: So mutable the state of man. 30

For this the watchful appetite was giv’n,

Daily with fresh materials to repair

This unavoidable expence of life,

This necessary waste of flesh and blood.

Hence the concoctive powers, with various art, 35

Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle;

The chyle to blood; the foamy purple tide

To liquors, which thro’ finer arteries

To different parts their winding course pursue;

To try new changes, and new forms put on, 40

Or for the public, or some private use.

[Pg 28]

Nothing so foreign but th’ athletic hind

Can labour into blood. The hungry meal

Alone he fears, or aliments too thin,

By violent powers too easily subdu’d, 45

Too soon expell’d. His daily labour thaws,

To friendly chyle, the most rebellious mass

That salt can harden, or the smoke of years;

Nor does his gorge the rancid bacon rue,

Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste 50

Of solid milk. But ye of softer clay

Infirm and delicate! and ye who waste

With pale and bloated sloth the tedious day!

Avoid the stubborn aliment, avoid

The full repast; and let sagacious age 55

Grow wiser, lesson’d by the dropping teeth.

Half subtiliz’d to chyle, the liquid food

Readiest obeys th’ assimilating powers;

[Pg 29]

And soon the tender vegetable mass

Relents; and soon the young of those that tread 60

The stedfast earth, or cleave the green abyss,

Or pathless sky. And if the Steer must fall,

In youth and vigor glorious let him die;

Nor stay till rigid age, or heavy ails,

Absolve him ill-requited from the yoke. 65

Some with high forage, and luxuriant ease,

Indulge the veteran Ox; but wiser thou,

From the bleak mountain or the barren downs,

Expect the flocks by frugal nature fed;

A race of purer blood, with exercise 70

Refin’d and scanty fare: For, old or young,

The stall’d are never healthy; nor the cramm’d.

Not all the culinary arts can tame,

To wholsome food, th’ abominable growth

Of rest and gluttony; the prudent taste 75

Rejects like bane such loathsome lusciousness.

[Pg 30]

The languid stomach curses even the pure

Delicious fat, and all the race of oil;

For more the oily aliments relax

Its feeble tone; and with the eager lymph 80

(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)

Coily they mix; and shun with slippery wiles

The wooed embrace. Th’ irresoluble oil,

So gentle late and blandishing, in floods

Of rancid bile o’erflows: What tumults hence, 85

What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.

Chuse leaner viands, ye of jovial make!

Chuse sober meals; and rouse to active life

Your cumbrous clay; nor on th’ enfeebling down,

Irresolute, protract the morning hours. 90

But let the man, whose bones are thinly clad,

With chearful ease, and succulent repast

Improve his slender habit. Each extreme

From the blest mean of sanity departs.

[Pg 31]

I could relate what table this demands, 95

Or that complexion; what the various powers

Of various foods: But fifty years would roll,

And fifty more, before the tale were done.

Besides, there often lurks some nameless, strange,

Peculiar thing; nor on the skin display’d, 100

Felt in the pulse, nor in the habit seen;

Which finds a poison in the food that most

The temp’rature affects. There are, whose blood

Impetuous rages thro’ the turgid veins,

Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind, 105

Than the moist Melon, or pale Cucumber.

Of chilly nature others fly the board

Supply’d with slaughter, and the vernal pow’rs

For cooler, kinder, sustenance implore.

Some even the generous nutriment detest 110

Which, in the shell, the sleeping Embryo rears.

Some, more unhappy still, repent the gifts

[Pg 32]

Of Pales; soft, delicious and benign:

The balmy quintescence of every flower,

And every grateful herb that decks the spring; 115

The fost’ring dew of tender sprouting life;

The best reflection of declining age;

The kind restorative of those who lie

Half-dead and panting, from the doubtful strife

Of nature struggling in the grasp of death. 120

Try all the bounties of this fertile globe,

There is not such a salutary food,

As suits with every stomach. But (except,

Amid the mingled mass of fish and fowl,

And boil’d and bak’d, you hesitate by which 125

You sunk oppress’d, or whether not by all;)

Taught by experience soon you may discern

What pleases, what offends. Avoid the cates

That lull the sicken’d appetite too long;

Or heave with feverish flushings all the face, 130[Pg 33]

Burn in the palms, and parch the roughning tongue;

Or much diminish or too much increase

Th’ expence which nature’s wise oeconomy,

Without or waste or avarice, maintains.

Such cates abjur’d, let prouling hunger loose, 135

And bid the curious palate roam at will;

They scarce can err amid the various stores

That burst the teeming entrails of the world.

Led by sagacious taste, the ruthless king

Of beasts on blood and slaughter only lives: 140

The tyger, form’d alike to cruel meals,

Would at the manger starve: Of milder seeds,

The generous horse to herbage and to grain

Confines his wish; tho’ fabling Greece resound

The Thracian steeds with human carnage wild. 145

Prompted by instinct’s never-erring power,

Each creature knows its proper aliment;

[Pg 34]

But man, th’ inhabitant of every clime,

With all the commoners of nature feeds.

Directed, bounded, by this pow’r within, 150

Their cravings are well-aim’d: Voluptous man

Is by superior faculties misled;

Misled from pleasure even in quest of joy.

Sated with nature’s boons, what thousands seek,

With dishes tortur’d from their native taste, 155

And mad variety, to spur beyond

Its wiser will the jaded appetite!

Is this for pleasure? Learn a juster taste;

And know, that temperance is true luxury.

Or is it pride? Pursue some nobler aim. 160

Dismiss your parasites, who praise for hire;

And earn the fair esteem of honest men,

Whose praise is fame. Form’d of such clay as yours,

The sick, the needy, shiver at your gates.

Even modest want may bless your hand unseen, 165[Pg 35]

Tho’ hush’d in patient wretchedness at home.

Is there no virgin, grac’d with every charm

But that which binds the mercenary vow?

No youth of genius, whose neglected bloom

Unfoster’d sickens in the barren shade? 170

No worthy man, by fortune’s random blows,

Or by a heart too generous and humane,

Constrain’d to leave his happy natal seat,

And sigh for wants more bitter than his own?

There are, while human miseries abound, 175

A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,

Without one fool or flatterer at your board,

Without one hour of sickness or disgust.

But other ills th’ ambiguous feast pursue,

Besides provoking the lascivious taste. 180

Such various foods, tho’ harmless each alone,

Each other violate; and oft we see

[Pg 36]

What strife is brew’d, and what pernicious bane,

From combinations of innoxious things.

Th’ unbounded taste I mean not to confine 185

To hermit’s diet, needlessly severe.

But would you long the sweets of health enjoy,

Or husband pleasure; at one impious meal

Exhaust not half the bounties of the year,

And of each realm. It matters not mean while 190

How much to morrow differ from to day;

So far indulge: ’tis fit, besides, that man,

To change obnoxious, be to change inur’d.

But stay the curious appetite, and taste

With caution fruits you never tried before. 195

For want of use the kindest aliment

Sometimes offends; while custom tames the rage

Of poison to mild amity with life.

[Pg 37]

So heav’n has form’d us to the general taste

Of all its gifts; so custom has improv’d 200

This bent of nature; that few simple foods,

Of all that earth, or air, or ocean yield,

But by excess offend. Beyond the sense

Of light refection, at the genial board

Indulge not often; nor protract the feast 205

To dull satiety; till soft and slow

A drowzy death creeps on, th’ expansive soul

Oppress’d, and smother’d the celestial fire.

The stomach, urg’d beyond its active tone,

Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues 210

The softest food: unfinish’d and deprav’d,

The chyle, in all its future wand’rings, owns

Its turbid fountain; not by purer streams

So to be clear’d, but foulness will remain.

To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt 215

Th’ unripen’d grape? Or what mechanic skill

[Pg 38]

From the crude ore can spin the ductile gold?

Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund

Of plagues: but more immedicable ills

Attend the lean extreme. For physic knows 220

How to disburden the too tumid veins,

Even how to ripen the half-labour’d blood;

But to unlock the elemental tubes,

Collaps’d and shrunk with long inanity,

And with balsamic nutriment repair 225

The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid

Old age grow green, and wear a second spring;

Or the tall ash, long ravish’d from the soil,

Thro’ wither’d veins imbibe the vernal dew.

When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait 230

Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain:

For the keen appetite will feast beyond

What nature well can bear; and one extreme

Ne’er without danger meets its own reverse.

[Pg 39]

Too greedily th’ exhausted veins absorb 235

The recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers

Oft to th’ extinction of the vital flame.

To the pale cities, by the firm-set siege

And famine humbled, may this verse be borne;

And hear, ye hardiest sons that Albion breeds, 240

Long toss’d and famish’d on the wintry main;

The war shook off, or hospitable shore

Attain’d, with temperance bear the shock of joy;

Nor crown with festive rites th’ auspicious day:

Such feast might prove more fatal than the waves, 245

Than war, or famine. While the vital fire

Burns feebly, heap not the green fuel on;

But prudently foment the wandering spark

With what the soonest feels its kindred touch:

Be frugal ev’n of that: a little give 250

At first; that kindled, add a little more;

[Pg 40]

Till, by deliberate nourishing, the flame

Reviv’d, with all its wonted vigor glows.

But tho’ the two (the full and the jejune)

Extremes have each their vice; it much avails 255

Ever with gentle tide to ebb and flow

From this to that: So nature learns to bear

Whatever chance or headlong appetite

May bring. Besides, a meagre day subdues

The cruder clods by sloth or luxury 260

Collected; and unloads the wheels of life.

Sometimes a coy aversion to the feast

Comes on, while yet no blacker omen lours;

Then is a time to shun the tempting board,

Were it your natal or your nuptial day. 265

Perhaps a fast so seasonable starves

The latent seeds of woe, which rooted once

Might cost you labour. But the day return’d

[Pg 41]

Of festal luxury, the wise indulge

Most in the tender vegetable breed: 270

Then chiefly when the summer’s beams inflame

The brazen heavens; or angry Syrius sheds

A feverish taint thro’ the still gulph of air.

The moist cool viands then, and flowing cup

From the fresh dairy-virgin’s liberal hand, 275

Will save your head from harm, tho’ round the world

The dreaded Causos3 roll his wasteful fires.

Pale humid Winter loves the generous board.

The meal more copious, and a warmer fare;

And longs, with old wood and old wine, to cheer 280

His quaking heart. The seasons which divide

Th’ empires of heat and cold; by neither claim’d.

Influenc’d by both; a middle regimen

[Pg 42]

Impose. Thro’ autumn’s languishing domain

Descending, nature by degrees invites 285

To glowing luxury. But from the depth

Of winter, when th’ invigorated year

Emerges; when Favonius flush’d with love,

Toyful and young, in every breeze descends

More warm and wanton on his kindling bride; 290

Then, shepherds, then begin to spare your flocks;

And learn, with wise humanity, to check

The lust of blood. Now pregnant earth commits

A various offspring to th’ indulgent sky:

Now bounteous nature feeds with lavish hand 295

The prone creation; yields what once suffic’d

Their dainty sovereign, when the world was young;

E’re yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seiz’d

The human breast. Each rolling month matures

The food that suits it most; so does each clime. 300[Pg 43]

Far in the horrid realms of winter, where

Th’ establish’d ocean heaps a monstrous waste

Of shining rocks and mountains to the pole;

There lives a hardy race, whose plainest wants

Relentless earth, their cruel step-mother, 305

Regards not. On the waste of iron fields,

Untam’d, untractable, no harvests wave:

Pomona hates them, and the clownish God

Who tends the garden. In this frozen world

Such cooling gifts were vain: a fitter meal 310

Is earn’d with ease; for here the fruitful spawn

Of Ocean swarms, and heaps their genial board

With generous fare and luxury profuse.

These are their bread, the only bread they know;

These, and their willing slave the deer, that crops 315

The shrubby herbage on their meager hills.

Girt by the burning zone, not thus the south

Her swarthy sons, in either Ind, maintains:

[Pg 44]

Or thirsty Lybia; from whose fervid loins

The lion bursts, and every fiend that roams 320

Th’ affrighted wilderness. The mountain herd,

Adust and dry, no sweet repast affords;

Nor does the tepid main such kinds produce,

So perfect, so delicious, as the stores

Of icy Zembla. Rashly where the blood 325

Brews feverish frays; where scarce the tubes sustain

Its tumid fervor and tempestuous course;

Kind nature tempts not to such gifts as these.

But here in livid ripeness melts the grape;

Here, finish’d by invigorating suns, 330

Thro’ the green shade the golden Orange glows;

Spontaneous here the turgid Melon yields

A generous pulp; the Coco swells on high

With milky riches; and in horrid mail

The soft Ananas wraps its tender sweets. 335

Earth’s vaunted progeny: In ruder air

[Pg 45]

Too coy to flourish, even to proud to live;

Or hardly rais’d by artificial fire

To vapid life. Here with a mother’s smile

Glad Amalthea pours her copious horn. 340

Here buxom Ceres reigns: Th’ autumnal sea

In boundless billows fluctuates o’er their plains.

What suits the climate best, what suits the men,

Nature profuses most, and most the taste

Demands. The fountain, edg’d with racy wine 345

Or acid fruit, bedews their thirsty souls.

The breeze eternal breathing round their limbs

Supports in else intolerable air:

While the cool Palm, the Plantain, and the grove

That waves on gloomy Lebanon, assuage 350

The torrid hell that beams upon their heads.

Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;

Now let me wander thro’ your gelid reign.

[Pg 46]

I burn to view th’ enthusiastic wilds

By mortal else untrod. I hear the din 355

Of waters thundering o’er the ruin’d cliffs.

With holy rev’rence I approach the rocks

Whence glide the streams renown’d in ancient song.

Here from the desart down the rumbling steep

First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Po 360

In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves

A mighty flood to water half the East;

And there, in Gothic solitude reclin’d,

The chearless Tanais pours his hoary urn.

What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades 365

Enwarp these infant floods! Thro’ every nerve

A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear

Glides o’er my frame. The forest deepens round;

And more gigantic still th’ impending trees

[Pg 47]

Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom. 370

Are these the confines of some fairy world?

A land of Genii? Say, beyond these wilds

What unknown nations? If indeed beyond

Aught habitable lies. And whither leads,

To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain, 375

That subterraneous way? Propitious maids,

Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread

This trembling ground. The task remains to sing

Your gifts, (so Pæon, so the powers of health

Command) to praise your chrystal element: 380

The chief ingredient in heaven’s various works;

Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem,

Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine;

The vehicle, the source, of nutriment

And life, to all that vegitate or live. 385[Pg 48]

O comfortable streams? With eager lips

And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff

New life in you; fresh vigor fills their veins.

No warmer cups the rural ages knew;

None warmer sought the sires of human-kind. 390

Happy in temperate peace! Their equal days

Felt not th’ alternate fits of feverish mirth,

And sick dejection. Still serene and pleas’d,

They knew no pains but what the tender soul

With pleasure yields to, and would ne’er forget. 395

Blest with divine immunity from ails,

Long centuries they liv’d; their only fate

Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death.

Oh! could those worthies from the world of Gods

Return to visit their degenerate sons, 400

How would they scorn the joys of modern time,

With all our art and toil improv’d to pain!

[Pg 49]

Too happy they! But wealth brought luxury,

And luxury on sloth begot disease.

405

Learn temperance, friends; and hear without disdain

The choice of water. Thus the Coan4 sage

Opin’d, and thus the learn’d of every school.

What least of foreign principles partakes

Is best: The lightest then; what bears the touch

Of fire the least, and soonest mounts in air; 410

The most insipid; the most void of smell.

Such the rude mountain from his horrid sides

Pours down; such waters in the sandy vale

For ever boil, alike of winter frosts

And summer’s heat secure. The lucid stream, 415

O’er rocks resounding, or for many a mile

Hurl’d down the pebbly channel, wholesome yields

[Pg 50]

And mellow draughts; except when winter thaws,

And half the mountains melt into the tide.

Tho’ thirst were ne’er so resolute, avoid 420

The sordid lake, and all such drowsy floods

As fill from Lethe Belgia’s slow canals;

(With rest corrupt, with vegetation green;

Squalid with generation, and the birth

Of little monsters;) till the power of fire 425

Has from profane embraces disengag’d

The violated lymph. The virgin stream

In boiling wastes its finer soul in air.

Nothing like simple element dilutes

The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow. 430

But where the stomach, indolently given,

Toys with its duty, animate with wine

Th’ insipid stream: Tho’ golden Ceres yields

[Pg 51]

A more voluptuous, a more sprightly draught;

Perhaps more active. Wine unmix’d, and all 435

The gluey floods that from the vex’d abyss

Of fermentation spring; with spirit fraught,

And furious with intoxicating fire;

Retard concoction, and preserve unthaw’d

Th’ embodied mass. You see what countless years, 450

Embalm’d in fiery quintescence of wine,

The puny wonders of the reptile world,

The tender rudiments of life, the slim

Unrav’lings of minute anatomy,

Maintain their texture, and unchang’d remain! 455

We curse not wine: The vile excess we blame;

More fruitful, than th’ accumulated board,

Of pain and misery. For the subtle draught

Faster and surer swells the vital tide;

And with more active poison, than the floods 460[Pg 52]

Of grosser crudity convey, pervades

The far-remote meanders of our frame.

Ah! sly deceiver! Branded o’er and o’er,

Yet still believ’d! Exulting o’er the wreck

Of sober Vows! But the Parnassian maids 465

Another time perhaps shall sing the joys,

The fatal charms, the many woes of wine;

Perhaps its various tribes, and various powers.

Meantime, I would not always dread the bowl,

Nor every trespass shun. The feverish strife, 470

Rous’d by the rare debauch, subdues, expells

The loitering crudities, that burthen life;

And, like a torrent full and rapid, clears

Th’ obstructed tubes. Besides, this restless world

Is full of chances, which by habit’s power 475

To learn to bear is easier than to shun.

Ah! when ambition, meagre love of gold,

[Pg 53]

Or sacred country calls, with mellowing wine

To moisten well the thirsty suffrages;

Say how, unseason’d to the midnight frays 480

Of Comus and his rout, wilt thou contend

With Centaurs long to hardy deeds inur’d?

Then learn to revel; but by slow degrees:

By slow degrees the liberal arts are won;

And Hercules grew strong. But when you smooth 485

The brows of care, indulge your festive vein

In cups by well-inform’d experience found

The least your bane; and only with your friends.

There are sweet follies, frailties to be seen

By friends alone, and men of generous minds. 490

Oh! seldom may the fated hours return

Of drinking deep! I would not daily taste,

Except when life declines, even sober cups.

[Pg 54]

Weak withering age no rigid law forbids,

With frugal nectar, smooth and slow with balm, 495

The sapless habit daily to bedew,

And give the hesitating wheels of life

Gliblier to play. But youth has better joys;

And is it wise when youth with pleasure flows,

To squander the reliefs of age and pain? 500

What dext’rous thousands just within the goal

Of wild debauch direct their nightly course!

Perhaps no sickly qualms bedim their days,

No morning admonitions shock the head.

But ah! what woes remain! Life rolls apace, 505

And that incurable disease old age,

In youthful bodies more severely felt,

More sternly active, shakes their blasted prime:

Except kind nature by some hasty blow

[Pg 55]

Prevent the lingering fates. For know, whate’er 510

Beyond its natural fervor hurries on

The sanguine tide; whether the frequent bowl,

High-season’d fare, or exercise to toil

Protracted; spurs to its last stage tir’d life,

And sows the temples with untimely snow.

When life is new, the ductile fibres feel 515

The heart’s increasing force; and, day by day,

The growth advances; till the larger tubes,

Acquiring (from their elemental5 veins,

Condens’d to solid chords) a firmer tone,

[Pg 56]

Sustain, and just sustain, th’ impetuous blood. 520

Here stops the growth. With overbearing pulse

And pressure, still the great destroy the small;

Still with the ruins of the small grow strong.

Life glows mean time, amid the grinding force

Of viscous fluids and elastic tubes; 525

Its various functions vigorously are plied

By strong machinery; and in solid health

The man confirm’d long triumphs o’er disease.

But the full ocean ebbs: There is a point,

By nature fix’d, whence life must downwards tend. 530

For still the beating tide consolidates

The stubborn vessels, more reluctant still,

To the weak throbbings of th’ enfeebled heart.

This languishing, these strengthning by degrees

To hard unyielding unelastic bone, 535

Thro’ tedious channels the congealing flood

[Pg 57]

Crawls lazily, and hardly wanders on;

It loiters still: And now it stirs no more.

This is the period few attain; the death

Of nature: Thus (so heav’n ordain’d it) life 540

Destroys itself; and could these laws have chang’d,

Nestor might now the fates of Troy relate;

And Homer live immortal as his song.

What does not fade? The tower that long had stood

The crush of thunder, and the warring winds, 545

Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,

Now hangs in doubtful ruins o’er its base.

And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,

Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk;

Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down. 550

Time shakes the liable tyranny of thrones,

[Pg 58]

And tottering empires rush by their own weight.

This huge rotundity we tread grows old;

And all those worlds that roll around the sun,

The sun himself, shall die; and ancient Night 555

Again involve the desolate abyss:

Till the great Father thro’ the lifeless gloom

Extend his arm to light another world,

And bid new planets roll by other laws.

For thro’ the regions of unbounded space, 560

Where unconfin’d omnipotence has room,

Being, in various systems, fluctuates still

Between creation and abhorr’d decay;

It ever did; perhaps and ever will.

New worlds are still emerging from the deep; 565

The old descending, in their turns to rise.

Thro’ various toils th’ adventurous muse has past;

But half the toil, and more than half, remains.

Rude is her theme, and hardly fit for song;

Plain, and of little ornament; and I

But little practis’d in th’ Aonian arts. 5

Yet not in vain such labours have we tried,

If ought these lays the fickle health confirm.

[Pg 62]

To you, ye delicate, I write; for you

I tame my youth to philosophic cares,

And grow still paler by the midnight lamps. 10

Not to debilitate with timorous rules

A hardy frame; nor needlessly to brave

Unglorious dangers, proud of mortal strength;

Is all the lesson that in wholsome years

Concerns the strong. His care were ill bestow’d 15

Who would with warm effeminacy nurse

The thriving oak, which on the mountain’s brow

Bears all the blasts that sweep the wintry heav’n.

Behold the labourer of the glebe, who toils

In dust, in rain, in cold and sultry skies: 20

Save but the grain from mildews and the flood,

Nought anxious he what sickly stars ascend.

He knows no laws by Esculapius given;

He studies none. Yet him nor midnight fogs

[Pg 63]

Infest, nor those envenom’d shafts that fly 25

When rabid Sirius fires th’ autumnal noon.

His habit pure with plain and temperate meals,

Robust with labour, and by custom steel’d

To every casualty of varied life;

Serene he bears the peevish eastern blast, 30

And uninfected breaths the mortal South.

Such the reward of rude and sober life;

Of labour such. By health the peasant’s toil

Is well repaid; if exercise were pain

Indeed, and temperance pain. By arts like these 35

Laconia nurs’d of old her hardy sons;

And Rome’s unconquer’d legions urg’d their way,

Unhurt, thro’ every toil in every clime.

Toil, and be strong. By toil the flaccid nerves

Grow firm, and gain a more compacted tone; 40[Pg 64]

The greener juices are by toil subdu’d,

Mellow’d, and subtilis’d; the vapid old

Expell’d, and all the rancor of the blood.

Come, my companions, ye who feel the charms

Of nature and the year; come, let us stray 45

Where chance or fancy leads our roving walk:

Come, while the soft voluptuous breezes fan

The fleecy heavens, enwrap the limbs in balm,

And shed a charming languor o’er the soul.

Nor when bright Winter sows with prickly frost 50

The vigorous ether, in unmanly warmth

Indulge at home; nor even when Eurus’ blasts

This way and that convolve the lab’ring woods.

My liberal walks, save when the skies in rain

Or fogs relent, no season should confine 55

Or to the cloister’d gallery or arcade.

Go, climb the mountain; from th’ etherial source

Imbibe the recent gale. The chearful morn

[Pg 65]

Beams o’er the hills; go, mount th’ exulting steed,

Already, see, the deep-mouth’d beagles catch 60

The tainted mazes; and, on eager sport

Intent, with emulous impatience try

Each doubtful track. Or, if a nobler prey

Delight you more, go chase the desperate deer;

And thro’ its deepest solitudes awake 65

The vocal forest with the jovial horn.

But if the breathless chase o’er hill and dale

Exceed your strength; a sport of less fatigue,

Not less delightful, the prolific stream

Affords. The chrystal rivulet, that o’er 70

A stony channel rolls its rapid maze,

Swarms with the silver fry. Such, thro’ the bounds

Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent;

Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such

[Pg 66]

The Esk, o’erhung with woods; and such the stream 75

On whole Arcadian banks I first drew air,

Liddal; till now, except in Doric lays

Tun’d to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,

Unknown in song: Tho’ not a purer stream,

Thro’ meads more flow’ry, or more romantic groves, 80

Rolls toward the western main. Hail sacred flood!

May still thy hospitable swains be blest

In rural innocence; thy mountains still

Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods

For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay 85

With painted meadows, and the golden grain!

Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new,

Sportive and petulant, and charm’d with toys,

In thy transparent eddies have I lav’d:

Oft trac’d with patient steps thy fairy banks, 90[Pg 67]

With the well-imitated fly to hook

The eager trout, and with the slender line

And yielding rod sollicite to the shore

The struggling panting prey; while vernal clouds

And tepid gales obscur’d the ruffled pool, 95

And from the deeps call’d forth the wanton swarms.

Form’d on the Samian school, or those of Ind,

There are who think these pastimes scarce humane.

Yet in my mind (and not relentless I)

His life is pure that wears no fouler stains. 100

But if thro’ genuine tenderness of heart,

Or secret want of relish for the game,

You shun the glories of the chace, nor care

To haunt the peopled stream; the garden yields

A soft amusement, an humane delight. 105

To raise th’ insipid nature of the ground;

[Pg 68]

Or tame its savage genius to the grace

Of careless sweet rusticity, that seems

The amiable result of happy chance,

Is to create; and gives a god-like joy, 110

Which every year improves. Nor thou disdain

To check the lawless riot of the trees,

To plant the grove, or turn the barren mould.

O happy he! whom, when his years decline,

(His fortune and his fame by worthy means 115

Attain’d, and equal to his moderate mind;

His life approv’d by all the wise and good,

Even envied by the vain) the peaceful groves

Of Epicurus, from this stormy world,

Receive to rest; of all ungrateful cares 120

Absolv’d, and sacred from the selfish crowd.

Happiest of men! if the same soil invites

A chosen few, companions of his youth,

Once fellow-rakes perhaps, now rural friends;

[Pg 69]

With whom in easy commerce to pursue 125

Nature’s free charms, and vie for sylvan fame:

A fair ambition; void of strife or guile,

Or jealousy, or pain to be outdone.

Who plans th’ enchanted garden, who directs

The visto best, and best conducts the stream; 130

Whose groves the fastest thicken and ascend;

Whom first the welcome spring salutes; who shews

The earliest bloom, the sweetest proudest charms,

Of Flora; who best gives Pomona’s juice

To match the sprightly genius of Champain. 135

Thrice happy days! in rural business past.

Blest winter nights! when, as the genial fire

Chears the wide hall, his cordial family

With soft domestic arts the hours beguile,

And pleasing talk that starts no timerous fame, 140

With witless wantoness to hunt it down:

[Pg 70]

Or thro’ the fairy-land of tale or song

Delighted wander, in fictitious fates

Engag’d, and all that strikes humanity;

Till lost in fable, they the stealing hour 145

Of timely rest forget. Sometimes, at eve,

His neighbours lift the latch, and bless unbid

His festal roof; while, o’er the light repast,

And sprightly cups, they mix in social joy;

And, thro’ the maze of conversation, trace 150

Whate’er amuses or improves the mind.

Sometimes at eve (for I delight to taste

The native zest and flavour of the fruit,

Where sense grows wild, and takes of no manure)

The decent, honest, chearful husbandman 155

Should drown his labours in my friendly bowl;

And at my table find himself at home.

[Pg 71]

Whate’er you study, in whate’er you sweat,

Indulge your taste. Some love the manly foils;

The tennis some; and some the graceful dance. 160

Others, more hardy, range the purple heath,

Or naked stubble; where from field to field

The sounding coveys urge their labouring flight;

Eager amid the rising cloud to pour

The gun’s unerring thunder: And there are 165

Whom still the meed6 of the green archer charms.

He chuses best, whose labour entertains

His vacant fancy most: The toil you hate

Fatigues you soon, and scarce improves your limbs.

As beauty still has blemish; and the mind 170

The most accomplish’d its imperfect side;

Few bodies are there of that happy mould

[Pg 72]

But some one part is weaker than the rest:

The legs, perhaps, or arms refuse their load,

Or the chest labours. These assiduously, 175

But gently, in their proper arts employ’d,

Acquire a vigor and elastic spring

To which they were not born. But weaker parts

Abhor fatigue and violent discipline.

Begin with gentle toils; and, as your nerves 180

Grow firm, to hardier by just steps aspire.

The prudent, even in every moderate walk,

At first but saunter; and by slow degrees

Increase their pace. This doctrine of the wise

Well knows the master of the flying steed. 185

First from the goal the manag’d coursers play

On bended reins; as yet the skilful youth

Repress their foamy pride; but every breath

The race grows warmer, and the tempest swells;

[Pg 73]

Till all the fiery mettle has its way, 190

And the thick thunder hurries o’er the plain.

When all at once from indolence to toil

You spring, the fibres by the hasty shock

Are tir’d and crack’d, before their unctuous coats,

Compress’d, can pour the lubricating balm. 195

Besides, collected in the passive veins,

The purple mass a sudden torrent rolls,

O’erpowers the heart, and deluges the lungs

With dangerous inundation: Oft the source

Of fatal woes; a cough that foams with blood, 200

Asthma, and feller Peripneumonie,7

Or the slow minings of the hectic fire.

Th’ athletic fool, to whom what heav’n deny’d

Of soul is well compensated in limbs,

[Pg 74]

Oft from his rage, or brainless frolic, feels 205

His vegetation and brute force decay.

The men of better clay and finer mould

Know nature, feel the human dignity;

And scorn to vie with oxen or with apes.

Pursued prolixly, even the gentlest toil 210

Is waste of health: Repose by small fatigue

Is earn’d; and (where your habit is not prone

To thaw) by the first moisture of the brows.

The fine and subtle spirits cost too much

To be profus’d, too much the roscid balm. 215

But when the hard varieties of life

You toil to learn; or try the dusty chace,

Or the warm deeds of some important day:

Hot from the field, indulge not yet your limbs

In wish’d repose, nor court the fanning gale, 220

Nor taste the spring. O! by the sacred tears

Of widows, orphans, mothers, sisters, sires,

[Pg 75]

Forbear! No other pestilence has driven

Such myriads o’er th’ irremeable deep.

Why this so fatal, the sagacious muse 225

Thro’ nature’s cunning labyrinths could trace:

But there are secrets which who knows not now,

Must, ere he reach them, climb the heapy Alps

Of science; and devote seven years to toil.

Besides, I would not stun your patient ears 230

With what it little boots you to attain.

He knows enough, the mariner, who knows

Where lurk the shelves, and where the whirlpools boil,

What signs portend the storm: To subtler minds

He leaves to scan, from what mysterious cause 235

Charybdis rages in th’ Ionian wave;

Whence those impetuous currents in the main,

Which neither oar nor sail can stem; and why

[Pg 76]

The roughning deep expects the storm, as sure

As red Orion mounts the shrowded heaven. 240

In ancient times, when Rome with Athens vied

For polish’d luxury and useful arts;

All hot and reeking from th’ Olympic strife,

And warm Palestra, in the tepid bath

Th’ athletic youth relax’d their weary’d limbs. 245

Soft oils bedew’d them, with the grateful pow’rs

Of Nard and Cassia fraught, to sooth and heal

The cherish’d nerves. Our less voluptuous clime

Not much invites us to such arts as these.

’Tis not for those, whom gelid skies embrace, 250

And chilling fogs; whose perspiration feels

Such frequent bars from Eurus and the North;

’Tis not for those to cultivate a skin

Too soft; or teach the recremental fume

Too fast to crowd thro’ such precarious ways. 255[Pg 77]

For thro’ the small arterial mouths, that pierce

In endless millions the close-woven skin,

The baser fluids in a constant stream

Escape, and viewless melt into the winds.

While this eternal, this most copious waste 260

Of blood degenerate into vapid brine,

Maintains its wonted measure; all the powers

Of health befriend you, all the wheels of life

With ease and pleasure move: But this restrain’d

Or more or less, so more or less you feel 265

The functions labour. From this fatal source

What woes descend is never to be sung.

To take their numbers, were to count the sands

That ride in whirlwind the parch’d Lybian air;

Or waves that, when the blustering North embroils 270

The Baltic, thunder on the German shore.

Subject not then, by soft emollient arts,

This grand expence, on which your fates depend,

[Pg 78]

To every caprice of the sky; nor thwart

The genius of your clime: For from the blood 275

Least fickle rise the recremental steams,

And least obnoxious to the styptic air,

Which breathe thro’ straiter and more callous pores.

The temper’d Scythian hence, half-naked treads

His boundless snows, nor rues th’ inclement heaven; 280

And hence our painted ancestors defied

The East; nor curs’d, like us, their fickle sky.

The body moulded by the clime, indures

Th’ Equator heats, or Hyperborean frost:

Except by habits foreign to its turn, 285

Unwise, you counteract its forming pow’r.

Rude at the first, the winter shocks you less

By long acquaintance: Study then your sky,

Form to its manners your obsequious frame,

And learn to suffer what you cannot shun. 290[Pg 79]

Against the rigors of a damp cold heav’n

To fortify their bodies, some frequent

The gelid cistern; and, where nought forbids,

I praise their dauntless heart. A frame so steel’d

Dreads not the cough, nor those ungenial blasts, 295

That breathe the Tertian or fell Rheumatism;

The nerves so temper’d never quit their tone,

No chronic languors haunt such hardy breasts.

But all things have their bounds: And he who makes

By daily use the kindest regimen 300

Essential to his health, should never mix

With human kind, nor art nor trade pursue.

He not the safe vicissitudes of life

Without some shock endures; ill-fitted he

To want the known, or bear unusual things. 305

Besides, the powerful remedies of pain

(Since pain in spite of all our care will come)

Should never with your prosperous days of health

[Pg 80]

Grow too familiar: For by frequent use

The strongest medicines lose their healing power, 310

And even the surest poisons theirs to kill.

Let those who from the frozen Arctos reach

Parch’d Mauritania, or the sultry West,

Or the wide flood that waters Indostan,

Plunge thrice a day, and in the tepid wave 315

Untwist their stubborn pores; that full and free

Th’ evaporation thro’ the softned skin

May bear proportion to the swelling blood.

So shall they ’scape the fever’s rapid flames;

So feel untainted the hot breath of hell. 320

With us, the man of no complaint demands

The warm ablution, just enough to clear

The sluices of the skin, enough to keep

The body sacred from indecent soil.

Still to be pure, even did it not conduce 325[Pg 81]

(As much it does) to health, were greatly worth

Your daily pains. ’Tis this adorns the rich;

The want of this is poverty’s worst woe:

With this external virtue, age maintains

A decent grace; without it, youth and charms 330

Are loathsome. This the skilful virgin knows:

So doubtless do your wives. For married sires,

As well as lovers, still pretend to taste;

Nor is it less (all prudent wives can tell)

To lose a husband’s, than a lover’s heart. 335

But now the hours and seasons when to toil,

From foreign themes recall my wandering song.

Some labour fasting, or but slightly fed,

To lull the grinding stomach’s hungry rage:

Where nature feeds too corpulent a frame 340

’Tis wisely done. For while the thirsty veins,

Impatient of lean penury, devour

[Pg 82]

The treasur’d oil, then is the happiest time

To shake the lazy balsam from its cells.

Now while the stomach from the full repast 345

Subsides; but ere returning hunger gnaws;

Ye leaner habits give an hour to toil:

And ye whom no luxuriancy of growth

Oppresses yet, or threatens to oppress.

But from the recent meal no labours please, 350

Of limbs or mind. For now the cordial powers

Claim all the wandering spirits to a work

Of strong and subtle toil, and great event;

A work of time: and you may rue the day

You hurried, with ill-seasoned exercise, 355

A half concocted chyle into the blood.

The body overcharg’d with unctuous phlegm

Much toil demands: The lean elastic less.

While winter chills the blood, and binds the veins,

No labours are too hard: By those you ’scape 360[Pg 83]

The slow diseases of the torpid year;

Endless to name; to one of which alone,

To that which tears the nerves, the toil of slaves

Is pleasure: Oh! from such inhuman pains

May all be free who merit not the wheel! 365

But from the burning Lion when the sun

Pours down his sultry wrath; now while the blood

Too much already maddens in the veins,

And all the finer fluids thro’ the skin

Explore their flight; me, near the cool cascade 370

Reclin’d, or sauntring in the lofty grove,

No needless slight occasion should engage

To pant and sweat beneath the fiery noon.

Now the fresh morn alone and mellow eve

To shady walks and active rural sports 375

Invite. But, while the chilling dews descend,

May nothing tempt you to the cold embrace

Of humid skies: Tho’ ’tis no vulgar joy

[Pg 84]

To trace the horrors of the solemn wood,

While the soft evening saddens into night: 380

Tho’ the sweet poet of the vernal groves

Melts all the night in strains of amorous woe.

The shades descend, and midnight o’er the world

Expands her sable wings. Great nature droops

Thro’ all her works. Now happy he whose toil 385

Has o’er his languid powerless limbs diffus’d

A pleasing lassitude: He not in vain

Invokes the gentle deity of dreams.

His powers the most voluptuously dissolve

In soft repose: On him the balmy dews 390

Of sleep with double nutriment descend.

But would you sweetly waste the blank of night

In deep oblivion; or on fancy’s wings

Visit the paradise of happy dreams,

[Pg 85]

And waken chearful as the lively morn; 395

Oppress not nature sinking down to rest

With feasts too late, too solid, or too full.

But be the first concoction half-matur’d,

Ere you to mighty indolence resign

Your passive faculties. He from the toils 400

And troubles of the day to heavier toil

Retires, whom trembling from the tower that rocks

Amid the clouds, or Calpe’s hideous height,

The busy dæmons hurl, or in the main

O’erwhelm, or bury struggling under ground. 405

Not all a monarch’s luxury the woes

Can counterpoise, of that most wretched man,

Whose nights are shaken with the frantic fits

Of wild Orestes; whose delirious brain,

Stung by the furies, works with poisoned thought! 410

While pale and monstrous painting shocks the soul;

And mangled consciousness bemoans itself

[Pg 86]

For ever torn; and chaos floating round.

What dreams presage, what dangers these or those

Portend to sanity, tho’ prudent seers 415

Reveal’d of old, and men of deathless fame;

We would not to the superstitious mind

Suggest new throbs, new vanities of fear.

’Tis ours to teach you from the peaceful night

To banish omens, and all restless woes. 420

In study some protract the silent hours,

Which others consecrate to mirth and wine;

And sleep till noon, and hardly live till night.

But surely this redeems not from the shades

One hour of life. Nor does it nought avail 425

What season you to drowsy Morpheus give

Of th’ ever-varying circle of the day;

Or whether, thro’ the tedious winter gloom,

You tempt the midnight or the morning damps.

[Pg 87]

The body, fresh and vigorous from repose, 430

Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils

Of wakeful day, exhausted and unstrung,

Weakly resists the night’s unwholsome breath.

The grand discharge, th’ effusion of the skin,

Slowly impair’d, the languid maladies 435

Creep on, and thro’ the sickning functions steal.

So, when the chilling East invades the spring,

The delicate Narcissus pines away

In hectic languor; and a slow disease

Taints all the family of flowers, condemn’d 440

To cruel heav’ns. But why, already prone

To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane?

O shame! O pity! nipt with pale Quadrille,

And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies!

By toil subdu’d, the Warrior and the Hind 445

Sleep fast and deep; their active functions soon

[Pg 88]

With generous streams the subtle tubes supply,

And soon the tonick irritable nerves

Feel the fresh impulse, and awake the soul.

The sons of indolence, with long repose, 450

Grow torpid; and, with slowest Lethe drunk,

Feebly and lingringly return to life,

Blunt every sense and powerless every limb.

Ye, prone to sleep (whom sleeping most annoys)

On the hard mattrass or elastic couch 455

Extend your limbs, and wean yourselves from sloth;

Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain

And springy nerves, the blandishments of down.

Nor envy while the buried bacchanal

Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams. 460

He without riot, in the balmy feast

Of life, the wants of nature has supplied

Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul.

[Pg 89]

But pliant nature more or less demands,

As custom forms her; and all sudden change 465

She hates of habit, even from bad to good.

If faults in life, or new emergencies,

From habits urge you by long time confirm’d,

Slow may the change arrive, and stage by stage;

Slow as the shadow o’er the dial moves, 470

Slow as the stealing progress of the year.

Observe the circling year. How unperceiv’d

Her seasons change! Behold! by slow degrees,

Stern Winter tam’d into a ruder spring;

The ripen’d Spring a milder summer glows; 475

Departing Summer sheds Pomona’s store;

And aged Autumn brews the winter-storm.

Slow as they come, these changes come not void

Of mortal shocks: The cold and torrid reigns,

[Pg 90]

The two great periods of th’ important year, 480

Are in their first approaches seldom safe:

Funereal autumn all the sickly dread,

And the black fates deform the lovely spring.

He well advis’d, who taught our wiser sires

Early to borrow Muscovy’s warm spoils, 485

Ere the first frost has touch’d the tender blade;

And late resign them, tho’ the wanton spring

Should deck her charms with all her sister’s rays.

For while the effluence of the skin maintains

Its native measure, the pleuritic Spring 490

Glides harmless by; and Autumn, sick to death

With sallow Quartans, no contagion breathes.

I in prophetic numbers could unfold

The omens of the year: what seasons teem

With what diseases; what the humid South 495

Prepares, and what the Dæmon of the East:

[Pg 91]

But you perhaps refuse the tedious song.

Besides, whatever plagues in heat, or cold,

Or drought, or moisture dwell, they hurt not you,

Skill’d to correct the vices of the sky, 500

And taught already how to each extream

To bend your life. But should the public bane

Infect you, or some trespass of your own,

Or flaw of nature hint mortality:

Soon as a not unpleasing horror glides 505

Along the spine, thro’ all your torpid limbs;

When first: the head throbs, or the stomach feels

A sickly load, a weary pain the loins;

Be Celsus call’d: The fates come rushing on;

The rapid fates admit of no delay. 510

While wilful you, and fatally secure,

Expect to morrow’s more auspicious sun,

The growing pest, whose infancy was weak

[Pg 92]

And easy vanquish’d, with triumphant sway

O’erpow’rs your life. For want of timely care 515

Millions have died of medicable wounds.

Ah! in what perils is vain life engag’d!

What slight neglects, what trivial faults destroy

The hardiest frame! Of indolence, of toil,

We die; of want, of superfluity. 520

The all-surrounding heaven, the vital air,

Is big with death. And, tho’ the putrid South

Be shut; tho’ no convulsive agony

Shake, from the deep foundations of the world,

Th’ imprisoned plagues; a secret venom oft 525

Corrupts the air, the water, and the land.

What livid deaths has sad Byzantium seen!

How oft has Cairo, with a mother’s woe,

Wept o’er her slaughter’d sons, and lonely streets!

[Pg 93]

Even Albion, girt with less malignant skies, 530

Albion the poison of the Gods has drunk,

And felt the sting of monsters all her own.

Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent

Their ancient rage, at Bosworth’s purple field;

While, for which tyrant England should receive, 535

Her legions in incestuous murders mix’d,

And daily horrors; till the Fates were drunk

With kindred blood by kindred hands profus’d:

Another plague of more gygantic arm

Arose, a monster never known before 540

Rear’d from Cocytus its portentuous head.

This rapid fury not, like other pests,

Pursued a gradual course, but in a day

Rush’d as a storm o’er half th’ astonish’d isle,

And strew’d with sudden carcasses the land. 545[Pg 94]

First thro’ the shoulders, or whatever part

Was seiz’d the first, a fervid vapour sprung.

With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark

Shot to the heart, and kindled all within;

And soon the surface caught the spreading fires. 550

Thro’ all the yielding pores the melted blood

Gush’d out in smoaky sweats; but nought assuag’d

The torrid heat within, nor aught reliev’d

The stomach’s anguish. With incessant toil,

Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain, 555

They toss’d from side to side. In vain the stream

Ran full and clear, they burnt and thirsted still.

The restless arteries with rapid blood

Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly

The breath was fetch’d, and with huge lab’rings heav’d. 560

At last a heavy pain oppress’d the head,

[Pg 95]

A wild delirium came; their weeping friends

Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.

Harass’d with toil on toil, the sinking powers

Lay prostrate and o’erthrown; a ponderous sleep 565

Wrapt all the senses up: They slept and died.

In some a gentle horror crept at first

O’er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin

Withheld their moisture, till by art provok’d

The sweats o’erflow’d; but in a clammy tide: 570

Now free and copious, now restrain’d and slow;

Of tinctures various, as the temperature

Had mix’d the blood; and rank with fetid steams:

As if the pent-up humors by delay

Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign. 575

Here lay their hopes (tho’ little hope remain’d)

With full effusion of perpetual sweats

To drive the venom out. And here the fates

[Pg 96]

Were kind, that long they linger’d not in pain.

For who surviv’d the sun’s diurnal race 580

Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem’d:

Some the sixth hour oppress’d, and some the third.

Of many thousands few untainted ’scap’d;

Of those infected fewer ’scap’d alive:

Of those who liv’d some felt a second blow; 585

And whom the second spar’d a third destroy’d.

Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun

The fierce contagion. O’er the mournful land

Th’ infected city pour’d her hurrying swarms:

Rous’d by the flames that fir’d her seats around, 590

Th’ infected country rush’d into the town.

Some, sad at home, and in the desart some,

Abjur’d the fatal commerce of mankind;

[Pg 97]

In vain: where’er they fled the Fates pursued.

Others, with hopes more specious, cross’d the main, 595

To seek protection in far-distant skies;

But none they found. It seem’d the general air

Was then at enmity with English blood.

For, but the race of England, all were safe

In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste 600

The foreign blood which Albion then contain’d.

Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven

Involv’d them still; and every breeze was bane.

Where find relief? The salutary art

Was mute; and, startled at the new disease, 605

In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.

To heaven with suppliant rites they sent their pray’rs;

[Pg 98]

Heav’n heard them not. Of every hope depriv’d;

Fatigu’d with vain resources; and subdued

With woes resistless and enfeebling fear; 610

Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.

Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard,

Nor ought was seen but ghastly views of death;

Infectious horror ran from face to face,

And pale despair. ’Twas all the business then 615

To tend the sick, and in their turns to die.

In heaps they fell: And oft one bed, they say,

The sickening, dying, and the dead contain’d.

Ye guardian Gods, on whom the Fates depend

Of tottering Albion! Ye eternal fires, 620

That lead thro’ heav’n the wandering year! Ye powers,

That o’er th’ incircling elements preside!

May nothing worse than what this age has seen

[Pg 99]

Arrive! Enough abroad, enough at home

Has Albion bled. Here a distemper’d heaven 625

Has thin’d her cities; from those lofty cliffs

That awe proud Gaul, to Thule’s wintry reign;

While in the West, beyond th’ Atlantic foam,

Her bravest sons, keen for the fight, have died

The death of cowards, and of common men; 630

Sunk void of wounds, and fall’n without renown.

But from these views the weeping Muses turn,

And other themes invite my wandering song.

The choice of aliment, the choice of air,

The use of toil and all external things,

Already sung; it now remains to trace

What good what evil from ourselves proceeds:

And how the subtle principle within 5

Inspires with health, or mines with strange decay

The passive body. Ye poetic Shades,

That know the secrets of the world unseen,

[Pg 104]

Assist my song! For, in a doubtful theme

Engag’d, I wander thro’ mysterious ways. 10

There is, they say, (and I believe there is)

A spark within us of th’ immortal fire,

That animates and moulds the grosser frame;

And when the body sinks, escapes to heaven,

Its native seat; and mixes with the Gods. 15

Mean while this heavenly particle pervades

The mortal elements, in every nerve

It thrills with pleasure, or grows mad with pain.

And, in its secret conclave, as it feels

The body’s woes and joys, this ruling power 20

Weilds at its will the dull material world,

And is the body’s health or malady.

By its own toil the gross corporeal frame

Fatigues, extenuates, or destroys itself:

[Pg 105]

Nor less the labours of the mind corrode 25

The solid fabric. For by subtle parts,

And viewless atoms, secret Nature moves

The mighty wheels of this stupendous world.

By subtle fluids pour’d thro’ subtle tubes

The natural, vital, functions are perform’d. 30

By these the stubborn aliments are tam’d;

The toiling heart distributes life and strength;

These the still-crumbling frame rebuild; and these

Are lost in thinking, and dissolve in air.

But ’tis not Thought (for still the soul’s employ’d) 35

’Tis painful thinking that corrodes our clay.

All day the vacant eye without fatigue

Strays o’er the heaven and earth; but long intent

On microscopic arts its vigour fails.

Just so the mind, with various thought amus’d, 40

Nor aches itself, nor gives the body pain.

[Pg 106]

But anxious Study, Discontent, and Care,

Love without hope, and Hate without revenge,

And Fear, and Jealousy, fatigue the soul,

Engross the subtle ministers of life, 45

And spoil the lab’ring functions of their share.

Hence the lean gloom that Melancholy wears;

The Lover’s paleness; and the sallow hue

Of Envy, Jealousy; the meagre stare

Of sore Revenge: The canker’d body hence 50

Betrays each fretful motion of the mind.

The strong-built pedant; who both night and day

Feeds on the coarsest fare the schools bestow,

And crudely fattens at gross Burman’s stall;

O’erwhelm’d with phlegm lies in a dropsy drown’d, 55

Or sinks in lethargy before his time.

With useful studies you, and arts that please

Employ your mind, amuse but not fatigue.

[Pg 107]

Peace to each drowsy metaphysic sage!

And ever may the German folio’s rest! 60

Yet some there are, even of elastic parts,

Whom strong and obstinate ambition leads

Thro’ all the rugged roads of barren lore,

And gives to relish what their generous taste

Would else refuse. But may nor thirst of fame 65

Nor love of knowledge urge you to fatigue

With constant drudgery the liberal soul.

Toy with your books: and, as the various fits

Of humour seize you, from Philosophy

To Fable shift; from serious Antonine 70

To Rabelais’ ravings, and from prose to song.

While reading pleases, but no longer, read;

And read aloud resounding Homer’s strain,

And weild the thunder of Demosthenes.

The chest so exercis’d improves its strength; 75[Pg 108]

And quick vibrations thro’ the bowels drive

The restless blood, which in unactive days

Would loiter else thro’ unelastic tubes.

Deem it not trifling while I recommend

What posture suits: To stand and sit by turns, 80

As nature prompts, is best. But o’er your leaves

To lean for ever, cramps the vital parts,

And robs the fine machinery of its play.

’Tis the great art of life to manage well

The restless mind. For ever on pursuit 85

Of knowledge bent it starves the grosser powers.

Quite unemploy’d, against its own repose

Its turns its fatal edge, and sharper pangs

Than what the body knows embitter life.

Chiefly where Solitude, sad nurse of care, 90

To sickly musing gives the pensive mind.

There madness enters; and the dim-ey’d Fiend,

[Pg 109]

Sour Melancholy, night and day provokes

Her own eternal wound. The sun grows pale;

A mournful visionary light o’erspreads 95

The chearful face of nature: earth becomes

A dreary desart, and heaven frowns above.

Then various shapes of curs’d illusion rise;

Whate’er the wretched fears, creating Fear

Forms out of nothing; and with monsters teems 100

Unknown in hell. The prostrate soul beneath

A load of huge imagination heaves.

And all the horrors, that the guilty feel,

With anxious flutterings wake the guiltless breast.

Such phantoms Pride in solitary scenes, 105

Or Fear, on delicate Self-love creates.

From other cares absolv’d, the busy mind

Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon;

It finds you miserable, or makes you so.

[Pg 110]

For while yourself you anxiously explore, 110

Timorous Self-love, with sick’ning Fancy’s aid,

Presents the danger that you dread the most,

And ever galls you in your tender part.

Hence some for love, and some for jealousy,

For grim religion some, and some for pride, 115

Have lost their reason: some for fear of want

Want all their lives; and others every day

For fear of dying suffer worse than death.

Ah! from your bosoms banish, if you can,

Those fatal guests: and first the Demon Fear; 120

That trembles at impossible events,

Lest aged Atlas should resign his load

And heaven’s eternal battlements rush down.

Is there an evil worse than fear itself?

And what avails it that indulgent heaven 125

From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,

If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,

[Pg 111]

Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?

Enjoy the present; nor with needless cares,

Of what may spring from blind Misfortune’s womb, 130

Appal the surest hour that life bestows.

Serene, and master of yourself, prepare

For what may come; and leave the rest to heaven.

Oft from the body, by long ails mistun’d,

These evils sprung the most important health, 135

That of the mind, destroy: And when the mind

They first invade, the conscious body soon

In sympathetic languishment declines.

These chronic passions, while from real woes

They rise, and yet without the body’s fault 140

Infest the soul, admit one only cure;

Diversion, hurry, and a restless life.

Vain are the consolations of the wise,

In vain your friends would reason down your pain.

[Pg 112]

Oh ye whose souls relentless love has tam’d 145

To soft distress, or friends untimely slain!

Court not the luxury of tender thought:

Nor deem it impious to forget those pains

That hurt the living, nought avail the dead.

Go, soft enthusiast! quit the cypress groves, 150

Nor to the rivulet’s lonely moanings tune

Your sad complaint. Go, seek the chearful haunts

Of men, and mingle with the bustling croud;

Lay schemes for wealth, or power, or fame, the wish

Of nobler minds, and push them night and day. 155

Or join the caravan in quest of scenes

New to your eyes, and shifting every hour;

Beyond the Alps, beyond the Apennines.

Or, more advent’rous, rush into the field

Where war grows hot; and, raging thro’ the sky, 160

The lofty trumpet swells the maddening soul:

[Pg 113]

And in the hardy camp and toilsome march

Forget all softer and less manly cares.

But most too passive, when the blood runs low,

Too weakly indolent to strive with pain, 165

And bravely by resisting conquer Fate,

Try Circe’s arts; and in the tempting bowl

Of poison’d Nectar sweet oblivion drink.

Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves

In empty air; Elysium opens round. 170

A pleasing phrenzy buoys the lighten’d soul,

And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;

And what was difficult, and what was dire,

Yields to your prowess and superior stars:

The happiest you, of all that e’er were mad, 175

Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.

But soon your heaven is gone; a heavier gloom

[Pg 114]

Shuts o’er your head: and, as the thundering stream,

Swoln o’er its banks with sudden mountain rain,

Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook; 180

So, when the frantic raptures in your breast

Subside, you languish into mortal man;

You sleep, and waking find yourself undone.

For prodigal of life in one rash night

You lavish’d more than might support three days. 185

A heavy morning comes; your cares return

With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well

May be endur’d; so may the throbbing head:

But such a dim delirium, such a dream,

Involves you; such a dastardly despair 190

Unmans your soul, as madd’ning Pentheus felt

When, baited round Citheron’s cruel sides,

He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend.

You curse the sluggish Port; you curse the wretch,

The felon, with unnatural mixture first 195[Pg 115]

Who dar’d to violate the virgin Wine.

Or on the fugitive Champain you pour

A thousand curses; for to heav’n your soul

It rapt, to plunge you deeper in despair.

Perhaps you rue even that divinest gift, 200

The gay, serene, good-natur’d Burgundy,

Or the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine:

And with that heaven from mortals had withheld

The grape, and all intoxicating bowls.

Besides, it wounds you sore to recollect 205

What follies in your loose unguarded hour

Escap’d. By one irrevocable word,

Perhaps that meant no harm, you lose a friend.

Or in the rage of wine your hasty hand

Performs a deed to haunt you to your grave. 210

Add that your means, your health, your parts decay;

[Pg 116]

Your friends avoid you; brutishly transform’d

They hardly know you; or if one remains

To wish you well, he wishes you in heaven.

Despis’d, unwept you fall; who might have left 215

A sacred, cherish’d, sadly-pleasing name;

A name still to be utter’d with a sigh.

Your last ungraceful scene has quite effac’d

All sense and memory of your former worth.

How to live happiest; how avoid the pains, 220

The disappointments, and disgusts of those

Who would in pleasure all their hours employ;

The precepts here of a divine old man

I could recite. Tho’ old, he still retain’d

His manly sense, and energy of mind. 225

Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;

He still remember’d that he once was young;

His easy presence check’d no decent joy.

[Pg 117]

Him even the dissolute admir’d; for he

A graceful looseness when he pleas’d put on, 230

And laughing cou’d instruct. Much had he read,

Much more had seen; he studied from the life,

And in th’ original perus’d mankind.

Vers’d in the woes and vanities of life,

He pitied man: And much he pitied those 235

Whom falsely-smiling fate has curs’d with means

To dissipate their days in quest of joy.

Our aim is Happiness; ’tis yours, ’tis mine,

He said, ’tis the pursuit of all that live;

Yet few attain it, if ’twas e’er attain’d. 240

But they the widest wander from the mark,

Who thro’ the flow’ry paths of saunt’ring Joy

Seek this coy Goddess; that from stage to stage

Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue.

For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings 245[Pg 118]

To counterpoise itself, relentless Fate

Forbids that we thro’ gay voluptuous wilds

Should ever roam: And were the Fates more kind

Our narrow luxuries would soon be stale.

Were these exhaustless, Nature would grow sick, 250

And, cloy’d with pleasure, squeamishly complain

That all was vanity, and life a dream.

Let nature rest: Be busy for yourself,

And for your friend; be busy even in vain

Rather than teize her sated appetites. 255

Who never fasts no banquet e’er enjoys;

Who never toils or watches never sleeps.

Let nature rest: And when the taste of joy

Grows keen, indulge; but shun satiety.

’Tis not for mortals always to be blest. 260

But him the least the dull or painful hours

Of life oppress, whom sober Sense conducts

[Pg 119]

And Virtue, thro’ this labyrinth we tread.

Virtue and Sense I mean not to disjoin;

Virtue and Sense are one; and, trust me, he 265

Who has not virtue is not truly wise.

Virtue (for meer good-nature is a fool)

Is sense and spirit, with humanity:

’Tis sometimes angry, and its frown confounds;

’Tis even vindictive, but in vengeance just. 270

Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great ones dare;

But at his heart the most undaunted son

Of fortune dreads its name and awful charms.

To noblest uses this determines wealth;

This is the solid pomp of prosperous days; 275

The peace and shelter of adversity.

And if you pant for glory, build your fame

On this foundation, which the secret shock

Defies of Envy and all-sapping Time.

[Pg 120]

The gawdy gloss of Fortune only strikes 280

The vulgar eye: The suffrage of the wise,

The praise that’s worth ambition, is attain’d

By Sense alone, and dignity of mind.

Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,

Is the best gift of heaven: a happiness 285

That even above the smiles and frowns of fate

Exalts great Nature’s favourites: a wealth

That ne’er encumbers, nor to baser hands

Can be transfer’d: it is the only good

Man justly boasts of, or can call his own. 290

Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn’d;

Or dealt by chance, to shield a lucky knave,

Or throw a cruel sun-shine on a fool.

But for one end, one much-neglected use,

Are riches worth your care: (for Nature’s wants 295

Are few, and without opulence supplied.)

[Pg 121]

This noble end is, to produce the Soul;

To shew the virtues in their fairest light;

To make Humanity the Minister

Of bounteous Providence; and teach the Breast 300

That generous luxury the Gods enjoy.

Thus, in his graver vein, the friendly Sage

Sometimes declaim’d. Of Right and Wrong he taught

Truths as resin’d as ever Athens heard;

And (strange to tell!) he practis’d what he preach’d. 305

Skill’d in the Passions, how to check their sway

He knew, as far as Reason can controul

The lawless Powers. But other cares are mine:

Form’d in the school of Pæon, I relate

What Passions hurt the body, what improve: 310

Avoid them, or invite them, as you may.

[Pg 122]

Know then, whatever chearful and serene

Supports the mind, supports the body too.

Hence the most vital movement mortals feel

Is Hope; the balm and life-blood of the soul. 315

It pleases, and it lasts. Indulgent heaven

Sent down the kind delusion, thro’ the paths

Of rugged life; to lead us patient on;

And make our happiest state no tedious thing.

Our greatest good, and what we least can spare. 320

Is Hope; the last of all our evils, Fear.

But there are Passions grateful to the breast,

And yet no friends to Life; perhaps they please

Or to excess, and dissipate the soul;

Or while they please, torment. The stubborn Clown, 325

The ill-tam’d Ruffian, and pale Usurer,

(If Love’s omnipotence such hearts can mould)

May safely mellow into love; and grow

[Pg 123]

Refin’d, humane, and generous, if they can.

Love in such bosoms never to a fault 330

Or pains or pleases. But ye finer Souls,

Form’d to soft luxury, and prompt to thrill

With all the tumults, all the joys and pains,

That beauty gives; with caution and reserve

Indulge the sweet destroyer of repose, 335

Nor court too much the Queen of charming cares.

For, while the cherish’d poison in your breast

Ferments and maddens; sick with jealousy,

Absence, distrust, or even with anxious joy,

The wholsome appetites and powers of life 340

Dissolve in languor. The coy stomach loaths

The genial board: Your chearful days are gone:

The generous bloom that flush’d your cheeks is fled.

To sighs devoted and to tender pains,

Pensive you sit, or solitary stray, 345

And waste your youth in musing. Musing first

[Pg 124]

Toy’d into care your unsuspecting heart:

It found a liking there, a sportful fire,

And that fomented into serious love;

Which musing daily strengthens and improves 350

Thro’ all the heights of fondness and romance:

And you’re undone, the fatal shaft has sped,

If once you doubt whether you love or no.

The body wastes away; th’ infected mind,

Dissolv’d in female tenderness, forgets 355

Each manly virtue, and grows dead to fame.

Sweet heaven from such intoxicating charms

Defend all worthy breasts! Not that I deem

Love always dangerous, always to be shun’d.

Love well repaid, and not too weakly sunk 360

In wanton and unmanly tenderness,

Adds bloom to Health; o’er every virtue sheds

A gay, humane, and amiable grace,

And brightens all the ornaments of man.

[Pg 125]

But fruitless, hopeless, disappointed, rack’d 365

With jealousy, fatigued with hope and fear,

Too serious, or too languishingly fond,

Unnerves the body and unmans the soul.

And some have died for Love; and some run mad;

And some with desperate hand themselves have slain. 370

Some to extinguish, others to prevent,

A mad devotion to one dangerous Fair,

Court all they meet; in hopes to dissipate

The cares of Love amongst a hundred Brides.

Th’ event is doubtful: for there are who find 375

A cure in this; there are who find it not.

’Tis no relief, alas! it rather galls

The wound, to those who are sincerely sick.

For while from feverish and tumultuous joys

The nerves grow languid and the soul subsides; 380

The tender Fancy smarts with every sting;

[Pg 126]

And what was Love before is Madness now.

Is health your care, or luxury your aim,

Be temperate still: When Nature bids obey;

Her wild impatient sallies bear no curb. 385

But when the prurient habit of delight,

Or loose Imagination, spurs you on

To deeds above your strength, impute it not

To Nature: Nature all compulsion hates.

Ah! let nor luxury nor vain renown 390

Urge you to feats you well might sleep without;

To make what should be rapture a fatigue,

A tedious task; nor in the wanton arms

Of twining Laïs melt your manhood down.

For from the colliquation of soft joys 395

How chang’d you rise! the ghost of what you was!

Languid, and melancholy, and gaunt, and wan;

Your veins exhausted and your nerves unstrung.

Spoil’d of its balm and sprightly zest, the blood

[Pg 127]

Grows vapid phlegm; along the tender nerves 400

(To each slight impulse tremblingly awake)

A subtle Fiend that mimics all the plagues

Rapid and restless springs from part to part.

The blooming honours of your youth are fallen;

Your vigour pines; your vital powers decay; 405

Diseases haunt you; and untimely Age

Creeps on; unsocial, impotent, and lewd.

Infatuate, impious, epicure! to waste

The stores of pleasure, chearfulness, and health!

Infatuate all who make delight their trade, 410

And coy perdition every hour pursue.

Who pines with Love, or in lascivious flames

Consumes, is with his own consent undone:

He chuses to be wretched, to be mad;

And warn’d proceeds and wilful to his fate. 415

But there’s a Passion, whole tempestuous sway

[Pg 128]

Tears up each virtue planted in the breast,

And shakes to ruins proud philosophy.

For pale and trembling Anger rushes in,

With fault’ring speech, and eyes that wildly stare; 420

Fierce as the Tyger, madder than the seas,

Desperate, and arm’d with more than human strength.

How soon the calm, humane, and polish’d man

Forgets compunction, and starts up a fiend!

Who pines in Love, or wastes with silent Cares, 425

Envy, or Ignominy, or tender Grief,

Slowly descends and ling’ring to the shades.

But he whom Anger stings, drops, if he dies,

At once, and rushes apoplectic down;

Or a fierce fever hurries him to hell. 430

For, as the Body thro’ unnumber’d strings

Reverberates each vibration of the Soul;

As is the Passion, such is still the Pain

[Pg 129]

The Body feels; or chronic, or acute.

And oft a sudden storm at once o’erpowers 435

The Life, or gives your Reason to the winds.

Such fates attend the rash alarm of Fear,

And sudden Grief, and Rage, and sudden Joy.

There are, mean time, to whom the boist’rous fit

Is Health, and only fills the sails of life. 440

For where the Mind a torpid winter leads,

Wrapt in a Body corpulent and cold,

And each clogg’d function lazily moves on;

A generous sally spurns th’ incumbent load,

Unlocks the breast, and gives a cordial glow. 445

But if your wrathful blood is apt to boil,

Or are your nerves too irritably strung;

Wave all Dispute; be cautious if you joke;

[Pg 130]

Keep Lent for ever; and forswear the Bowl.

For one rash moment sends you to the shades, 450

Or shatters every hopeful scheme of life,

And gives to horror all your days to come.

Fate, arm’d with thunder, fire, and every plague

That ruins, tortures, or distracts mankind,

And makes the happy wretched in an hour, 455

O’erwhelms you not with woes so horrible

As your own Wrath, nor gives more sudden blows.

While Choler works, good Friend, you may be wrong;

Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight.

’Tis not too late to morrow to be brave; 460

If Honour bids, to morrow kill or die.

But calm advice against a raging fit

Avails too little; and it tries the power

[Pg 131]

Of all that ever taught in Prose or Song,

To tame the Fiend that sleeps a gentle Lamb, 465

And wakes a Lion. Unprovok’d and calm,

You reason well, see as you ought to see,

And wonder at the madness of mankind:

Seiz’d with the common rage, you soon forget

The speculations of your wiser hours. 470

Beset with Furies of all deadly shapes,

Fierce and insidious, violent and slow;

With all that urge or lure us on to Fate;

What refuge shall we seek? what arms prepare?

Where Reason proves too weak, or void of wiles, 475

To cope with subtle or impetuous Powers,

I would invoke new Passions to your aid:

With Indignation would extinguish Fear,

With Fear or generous Pity vanquish Rage,

And Love with Pride; and force to force oppose. 480[Pg 132]

There is a Charm: a Power that sways the breast;

Bids every Passion revel or be still;

Inspires with Rage, or all your Cares dissolves;

Can sooth Distraction, and almost Despair.

That Power is Music: Far beyond the stretch 485

Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage;

Those clumsy Heroes, those fat-headed Gods,

Who move no Passion justly but Contempt:

Who, like our dancers (light indeed and strong!)

Do wond’rous feats, but never heard of grace. 490

The fault is ours; we bear those monstrous arts,

Good Heaven! we praise them: we, with loudest peals,

Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels;

And, with insipid shew of rapture, die

Of ideot notes, impertinently long. 495[Pg 133]

But he the Muse’s laurel justly shares,

A Poet he, and touch’d with Heaven’s own fire;

Who, with bold rage or solemn pomp of sounds,

Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul;

Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain, 500

In Love dissolves you; now in sprightly strains

Breathes a gay rapture thro’ your thrilling breast;

Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad;

Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings.

Such was the bard, whose heavenly strains of old 505

Appeas’d the fiend of melancholy Saul.

Such was, if old and heathen fame say true,

The man who bade the Theban domes ascend,

And tam’d the savage nations with his song;

And such the Thracian, whose harmonious lyre, 510

Tun’d to soft woe, made all the mountains weep;

Sooth’d even th’ inexorable powers of Hell,

[Pg 134]

And half redeem’d his lost Eurydice.

Music exalts each Joy, allays each Grief,

Expells Diseases, softens every Pain, 515

Subdues the rage of Poison, and the Plague;

And hence the wise of ancient days ador’d

One Power of Physic, Melody, and Song.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The art of preserving health: A poem

THE
ART
OF PRESERVING
HEALTH:
A
POEM.

CONTENTS

BOOK I.
AIR.

BOOK II.
DIET.

BOOK III.
EXERCISE.

BOOK IV.
The PASSIONS.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber’s Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The art of preserving health: A poem

THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: A POEM.

CONTENTS

BOOK I. AIR.

BOOK II. DIET.

BOOK III. EXERCISE.

BOOK IV. The PASSIONS.