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Yet when pale seasons rise, or Winter rolls
His horrors o'er the world, thou mayst indulge
In feast 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
Bedew'd, our seasons droop: incumbent still
A ponderous heaven o'erwhelms the sinking soul.
Labouring with storms in heapy mountains rise
The embattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades
Had left the dungeon of eternal night,

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
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 ?
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
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.

Meantime, the moist malignity to shun
Of burden❜d skies; mark where the dry champaign
Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram

And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the cynorrhodon 3 with the rose
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil
Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
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
O'erhung, defends you from the blustering North,
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
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.
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 the harmonious frame.
Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes
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.

Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides

3 The wild rose, or that which grows on the common brier.

The ethereal deep with endless billows chafes.
His purer mansion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain, 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 thau warm. Else every breath of ruder wind will strike Your tender body through with rapid pains ; Fierce coughs will tease you, hoarseness bind your

voice,

Or moist Gravedo 4 load your aching brows.
These to defy, and all the fates that dwell
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,
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
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel, the genial vigour of the sun!
While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames
The verdant spring; in virgin beauty blows
The tender lily, languishingly sweet;

O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,
And autumn ripens in the summer's ray.
Nor less the warmer living tribes demand

4 Popularly called a cold.

The fostering sun, whose
energy divine
Dwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat
Glows through the mass of grosser elements,
And kindles into life the ponderous spheres.
Cheer'd by thy kind invigorating warmth,
We court thy beams, great majesty of day!
If not the soul, the regent of this world,
First-born of heaven, and only less than God!

THE

Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭲ

OF

PRESERVING HEALTH.

BOOK II.

DIET

ENOUGH of air. A desert subject now,
Rougher and wilder, rises to my sight.
A barren waste, where not a garland grows
To bind the Muse's brow; not ev'n a proud
Stupendous solitude frowns o'er the heath,
To rouse a noble horror in the soul:
But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads
Through endless labyrinths the devious feet.
Farewell, ethereal fields! the humbler arts
Of life; the table and the homely gods
Demand my song. Elysian gales, adieu!

The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,

The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys

To every particle that moves or lives;

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