Say how, unfeafon'd to the midnight frays,
Of Comus and his rout, wilt thou contend
With Centaurs long to hardy deeds inur'd
Then learn to revel, but by flow degrees;
By flow degrees the lib'ral arts are won,
And Herculus grew ftrong. But when you fmooth
The brows of care, indulge your feftive vein
In cups by well-inform'd experience found

The leaft your bane, and only with your friends, ri There are fweet follies; frailties to be seen

may

By friends alone, and men of gen'rous minds.
O feldom the fated hours return
Of drinking deep! I would not daily tafte,
Except when life declines, ev'n fober cups,
Week withering age no rigid law forbids,
With frugal nectar, fmooth and flow, with balm
The faplefs habit daily to bedew;

And give the hesitating wheels of life
Gliblier to play. But youth has better joys!
And is it wife, when youth with pleasure flows,
To fquander the reliefs of age and pain?

What dext'rous thousands juft within the goal
Of wild debauch direct their nightly course!
Perhaps no fickly qualms bedim their days,
No morning admonitions fhock the head.
But, ah! what woes remain! Life rolls apace,
Add that incurable disease, old age,

In youthful bodies more feverely felt,
More fternly active, shakes their blasted prime,
Except kind Nature by fome hafty blow

**

Prevent the ling'ring fates. For know, whate'er
Beyond its natural fervour hurries on

The fanguine tide; whether the frequent bowl,
High-feafon'd fare, or exercife to toil
Protracted; fpurs to its laft ftage tir'd life,
And fows the temples with untimely fnow.
When life is new, the ductile fibres feel
The heart's increafing force; and, day by day,

The

The growth advances: till the larger tubes,
Acquiring (from their elemental veins
Condens'd to folid chords) a firmer tone,
Suftain, and juft fuflain, th' impetuous blood.
Here flops the growth. With overbearing pulle
And preffure, till the great deftroy the finall;
Still with the ruins of the fmall grow strong.
Life glows meantime amid the grinding force
'Of viscous fluids and elaftic tubes;

Its various functions vigorously are plied
By ftrong machinery; and in folid health
The Man confirm'd long triumphs o'er difeafe.
But the full ocean ebbs: there is a point,
By nature fix'd, whence life muft downwards tend.
For fill the beating tide confolidates

The flubborn veffels, more reluctant still
To the weak throbs of th' ill-fupported heart.
This languishing, thefe ftrength'ning by degrees
To hard unyielding unelastic bone,

Thro' tedious channels the congealing flood
Crawls lazily, and hardly wanders on :
It loiters ftill; and now it firs no more.
This is the period few attain, the death
Of nature. Thus (fo Heaven ordain'd it) life
Deftroys itfelf; and, could thefe laws have chang'd,
Neftor might now the fates of Troy relate,
And Homer live immortal as his fong.

What

*In the human body, as well as in thofe of other animals, the larger blood veffels are compofed of fmaller ones: which, by the violent motion and preffure of the fluids in the large veffels, lofe their cavities by degrees aud degenerate into impervious chords or fibres. In proportion as thefe fmall veffels become folid, the larger must of courfe grow lefs extenfile, more rigid, and make a stronger refiftance to the action of the heart and force of the blood: From this gradual condenfation of the fmaller veffels, and confequent rigidity of the larger ones, the progress of the human body from infancy to old age is accounted for.

What does not fade? The tow'r that long had flood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the flow but fure deftroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,
Defcend the Babylonian fpires are funk;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time fhakes the ftable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old,
And all thofe worlds that roll around the fun :
The fun himself fhall die, and ancient Night
Again involve the defolate abyfs,

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.
Where unconfin'd Omnipotence has room
Being, in various fyftems, fluctuates ftill
Between creation and abhorr'd decay;
It ever did, perhaps, and ever will.
New worlds are ftill emerging from the deep;
The old defcending, in their turns to rise.

BOOK III. EXERCISE.

THRO' various toils th' adventurous Mufe has pafs'd; 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.
Yet not in vain fuch labours have we tried,
If aught thefe lays the fickle health confirm.
To you, ye delicate, I write; for you
I tame my youth to philofophic cares,
And grow ftill paler by the midnight lamp.

Not to debilitate with timorous rules
Vol. V. 17.

C

A hardy

A hardy frame; nor heedlefsly to brave
Inglorious dangers, proud of mortal strength, orð
Is all the leffon that in wholefome years

Concerns the frong. His care were ill beftow'd,
Who would with warm effeminacy nurfe

The thriving oak which on the mountain's brow goi
Bears all the blafts that fweep the wint'ry heaven.

Behold the labourer of the glebe, who toils
In duft, in rain, in cold, and fultry fkies
Save but the grain from mildews and the flood,
Nought anxious he what fickly stars afcend.
He knows no laws by Efculapius given,
He ftudies none. Yet him nor midnight fogs
Infeft, nor thofe envenom'd fhafts that fly
When rapid Sirius fires th' autumnal noon."
His habit pure with plain and temperate meals,
Robuft with labour, and by custom steel'd
To ev'ry cafualty of varied life;

Serene he bars the peevish Eaftern blaft,
And uninfected breathes the mortal South,

Such the reward of rude and sober life,
Of labour fuch. By health the peafant's toil
Is well repaid, if exercise were pain

Indeed, and temp'rance pain. By arts like thefe
Laconia nurs'd of old her hardy fons;

And Rome's unconquer'd legions urg'd their way,
Unhurt, thro' ev'ry toil, in ev'ry clime.

Toil, and be ftrong. By toil the flaccid nerves
Grow firm, and gain a more compacted tone;
The greener juices are by toil fubdued,
Mellow'd, and fubtiliz'd; the vapid old
Expell'd, and all the rancour of the blood,
Come, my companions, ye who feel the charms
Of nature and the year; come, let us ftray
Where chance or fancy leads our roving walk:
Come, while the foft voluptuous breezes fan
The fleecy heavens, enwrap the limbs with balm,
And thed a charming languor o'er the foul.

Nor

Nor when bright Winter fows with prickly froft
The vigorous ether, in unmanly warmth.

Indulge at home; nor even when Eurus' blafts,
This way and that convolve the lab'ring woods..
My liberal walks, fave when the fkies in rain
Or fogs relent, no feafon fhould confine
Or to the cloifter'd gallery or arcade,

Go, climb the mountain; from th'ethereal fource
Imbibe the recent gale. The cheerful morn
Beams o'er the hills; go, mount th' exuiting fleed.
Already, fee, the deep-mouth'd beagles catch
The tainted mazes; and, on eager sport
Intent, with emulous impatience try
Each doubtful trace. Or, if a nobler prey
Delight you more, go chace the defp'rate déer;
And thro' its deepest folitudes awake
The vocal foreft with the jovial horn.

But if the breathlefs chace o'er hill and dale
Exceed your ftrength, a fport of less fatigue,
Not lefs delightful, the prolific ftream
Affords. The cryftal rivulet, that o'er
A ftony channel rolls its rapid maze,

Swarms with the filver fry. Such, thro' the bounds
Of paftoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent ;
Such Eden, fprung from Cumbrian mountains; fuch
The Efk, o'erhung with woods; and fuch the ftream
On whofe Arcadian banks I first drew air,
Liddal; till now, except in Doric lays
Tun'd to her murmurs by her love-fick fwains,
Unknown in fong: tho' not a purer fream,

Thro' meads more flow'ry, or more romantic groves,
Rolls toward the western main. Hail, facred flood!
May fill thy hofpitable fwains be bleft

gay

In rural innocence; thy mountains fill
Teem with the fleecy race thy tuneful woods
For ever flourish; and thy vales look
With painted meadows, and the golden grain!
Oft, with thy blooming fons, when life was new,
Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys,

C &

In