To pant and sweat beneath the fiery noon. O shame! O pity! nipt with pale quadrille,
Now the fresh morn alone and mellow eve And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies!
To shady walks and active rural sports

By toil subdu'd, the warrior and the hind
Invite. But, while the chilling dews descend, Sleep fast and deep: their active functions soon
May nothing tempt you to the cold embrace With generous streams the subtle tubes supply;
of humid skies ; though 'tis no vulgar joy

And soon the tonic irritable nerves To trace the horrors of the solemn wood,

Feel the fresh impulse and awake the soul. While the soft evening saddens into night:

The sons of indolence with long repose
Though the sweet poet of the vernal groves Grow torpid ; and, with slowest Lethe drunk,
Melts all the night in strains of am'rous woe. Feebly and ling'ringly return to life,

The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world Blunt every sense and powerless every limb.
Expands her sable wings. Great Nature droops Ye, prone to sleep (whom sleeping most annoys)
Through all her works. Now happy he whose toil On the hand mattress or elastic couch
Has o'er his languid powerless limbs diffus'd Extend your limbs, and wean yourselves from sloth
A pleasing lassitude: he not in vain

Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain
Invokes the gentle deity of dreams.

And springy nerves, the blandishments of down:
His powers the most voluptuously dissolve Nor envy while the buried Bacchanal
In soft repose : on him the balmy dews

Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams. of sleep with double nutriment descend.

He without riot, in the balmy feast But would you sweetly waste the blank of night or life, the wants of nature has supplied, In deep oblivion; or on Fancy's wings

Who rises, cool, serene, and full of soul. Visit the paradise of happy dreams,

But pliant nature more or less demands, And waken cheerful as the lively morn;

As custom forms her; and all sudden change Oppress not nature sinking down to rest

She hates of habit, even from bad to good. With feasts too late, too solid, or too full :

If faults in life, or new emergencies, But be the first concoction half-matur'd

From habits urge you by long time confirm’d, Ere you to mighty indolence resign

Slow may the change arrive, and stage by stage;' Your passive faculties. He from the toils

Slow as the shadow o'er the dial moves,
And troubles of the day to heavier toit

Slow as the stealing progress of the year.
Retires, whom trembling from the lower that rocks Observe the circling year. How unperceiv'd
Amid the clouds, or Calpe's hideous height, Her seasons change! Behold! by slow degrees,
The busy demons hurl; or in the main

Stern Winter tam'd into a ruder Spring;
O'erwhelm; or bury struggling under ground. The ripen'd Spring a milder Summer's glows;
Not all a monarch's luxury the woes

The parting Summer sheds Pomona's store,
Can counterpoise of that most wretched man, And aged Autumn brews the winter storm.
Whose nights are shaken with the frantic fits Slow as they come, these changes come not void
Of wild Orestes ; whose delirious brain,

Of mortal shocks: the cold and torrid reigns,
Stung by the furies, works with poison'd thought; The iwo great periods of the important year,
While pale and monstrous painting shocks the soul; Are in their first approaches seldom safe ;
And mangled consciousness bemoans itself Funereal Autumn all the sickly dread;
For ever torn; and chaos floating round.

And the black fates deform the lovely Spring.
What dreams presage, what dangers these or those He well advis'd who taught our wiser sires
Poriend to sanity, though prudent seers

Early to borrow Muscovy's warm spoils, Reveal'd of old, and men of deathless fame, Ere the first frost has touch'd the tender blade; We would not to the superstitious mind

And late resign them, though the wanton Spring Suggest new throbs, new vanities of fear.

Should deck her charms with all her sister's raya
'Tis ours to teach you from the peaceful night For while the effluence of the skin maintains
To banish omens and all restless woes.

Its native measure, the pleuritic Spring
In study some protract the silent hours, Glides harmless by; and Autumn, sick to death
Which others consecrate to mirth and wine; With sallow quartans, no contagion breathes.
And sleep till noon, and hardly live till night. I in prophetic numbers could unfold
But surely this redeems not from the shades The omens of the year: what seasons teem
One hour of life. Nor does it nought avail With what diseases; what ihe humid South
What season you to drowsy Morpheus give Prepares, and what the demon of the East:
Of th' ever-varying circle of the day;

But you perhaps refuse the tedious song.
Or whether, through the tedious winter gloom, Besides, whatever plagues in heal, or cold,
You tempt the midnight or the morning damps. Or drought, or moisture dwell, they hurt not you,
The body, fresh and vigorous from repose, Skill'd to correct the vices of the sky,
Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils.

And taught already how to each extreme
Of wakeful day exhausted and unstrung,

To bend your life. But should the public bano
Weakly resists the night's unwholesome breath. Infect you ; or some trespass of your own,
The grand discharge, th' effusion of the skin, Or flaw of nature, hint mortality;
Slowly impaird, the languid maladies

Soon as 'a not unpleasing horror glides
Creep on, and through the sick'ning functions steal. Along the spine, through all your torpid limbs;
As, when the chilling east invades the Spring, When first the head throbe, or the stomach feels
The delicate narcissus pines away

A sickly load, a weary pain the loins ;
In hectic languor, and a slow disease

Be Celsus call'd: the fates come rushing on;
Taints all the family of powers, condemn'd The rapid fates admit of no delay.
To cruel heav'ns. But why, already prone

While wilful you, and fatally secure,
To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane? Expect to-morrow's more auspicious sun,

The growing pest, whose infancy was weak of many thousands, few untainted 'scap'd ; And easy vanquish’d, with triumphant sway Of those infected, fewer 'scap'd alive : O'erpow'rs your life. For want of timely care, of those who liv'd, some felt a second blow; Millions have died of medicable wounds.

And whom the second spar’d, a third destroy'd. Ah! in what perils is vain life engag'd! Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun What slight neglects, what trivial faults destroy The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land The hardiest frame! of indolence, of toil, Th’infected city pour'd her hurrying swarms : We die ; of want, of superfluity :

Rous'd by the flames that fir’d her seats around, The all-surrounding Heaven, the vital air, Th'infected country rush'd into the lown. Is big with death. And, though the putrid South Some, sad at home, and in the deseri some, Be shut; though no convulsive agony

Abjur'd the fatal commerce of mankind : Shake, from the deep foundations of the world, In vain : where'er they fed, the sales pursu'd. Th' imprison'd plagues ; a secret venom oft Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main, Corrupts the air, the water, and the land.

To seek protection in far-distant skies; What livid deaths has sad Byzantium seen! But none they found. It seem'd the general air, How oft has Cairo, with a mother's woe,

From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east, Wept o'er her slaughter'd sons and lonely streets! Was then at enmity with English blood. Even Albion, girt with less malignant skies, For, but the race of England, all were safe Albion the poison of the gods has drank,

In foreign climes ; nor did this fury taste And felt the sting of monsters all her own. The foreign blood which England then contain'd. Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent

Where should they fly? The circumambient Heaven Their ancient rage, at Bosworth's purple field; Involv'd them still; and every breeze was bane. While, for which tyrant England should receive, Where find relief? The salutary art Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd,

Was mute; and, startled at the new disease, And daily horrors; till the fates were drunk In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave. With kindred blood by kindred hands profus'd : To Heaven with suppliant rites they sent their pray'rs; Another plague of more gigantic arm

Heav'n heard them not. Of every hope depriv'd; Arose, a monster, never known before,

Fatigued with vain resources; and subdu'd Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.

With woes resistless and enfeebling fear; This rapid fury not, like other pests,

Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow. Pursu'd a gradual course, but in a day

Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard, Rush'd as a storm o'er half the astonish'd isle, Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death. And strew'd with sudden carcasses the land. Infectious horror ran from face to face,

First, through the shoulders, or whatever part And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then Was seiz'd the first, a fervid vapor sprung. To tend the sick, and in their turns to die. With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark In heaps they fell: and oft one bed, they say, Shot to the heart, and kindled all within ; The sick’ning, dying, and the dead contain'd. And soon the surface caught the spreading fires. Ye guardian gods, on whom the fates depend Through all the yielded pores, the melted blood of totiering Albion! ye eternal fires Gush'd out in smoky sweais; but nought assuag'd. That lead through Heav'n the wandering year! ye The torrid heat within, nor aught reliev'd

powers The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil, That o'er th' encircling elements preside! Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain, May nothing worse than what this age has seen They toss'd from side to side. In vain the stream Arrive! Enough abroad, enough at home Ran full and clear, they burnt and thirsted still. Has Albion bled. Here a distemper'd heaven The restless arteries with rapid blood

Has thinn'd her cities, from those lofty cliffs Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly That awe proud Gaul, to Thule's wintry reign; The breath was fetch'd, and with huge lab'rings while in the west, beyond the Atlantic foam, heav'd.

Her bravest sons, keen for the fight, have died At last a heavy pain oppress’d the head,

The death of cowards and of common men : A wild delirium came; their weeping friends Sunk void of wounds, and fall'n without renown. Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.

But from these views the weeping Muses turn,
Harass'd with toil on toil, the sinking powers And other themes invite my wandering song.,
Lay prostrate and o’erthrown; a ponderous sleep
Wrapt all the senses up: they slept and died.
In some a gentle horror crept at first

Book IV.
O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till by art provok'd

THE PASSIONS.
The sweats o'erflow'd; but in a clammy tide :
Now free and copious, now restrain'd and slow; The choice of aliment, the choice of air,
Of tinctures various, as the temperature

The use of toil, and all external things,
Had mix'd the blood ; and rank with fetid steams : Already sung; it now remains to trace
As if the pent-up humors by delay

What good, what evil, from ourselves proceeds :
Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign. And how the subtle principle within
Here lay their hopes (though little hope remain'd) Inspires with health, or mines with strange decay
With full effusion of perpetual sweats

The passive body. Ye poetic shades
To drive the venom out. And here the fates Who know the secrets of the world unseen,
Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain; Assist my song! for, in a doubtful theme.
For who surviv'd the Sun's diurnal race

Engag'd, I wander through mysterious ways.
Rose from the dreary gates of Hell redeem'd : There is, they say, (and I believe there is,)
Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third. A spark within us of ih' immortal fire,

That animates and moulds the grosser frame; To lean for ever, cramps the vital parts,
And when the body sinks, escapes to Heaven, And robs the fine machinery of its play.
Its native seat, and mixes with the gods.

'Tis the great art of life to manage well Meanwhile this heavenly particle pervades The restless mind. For ever on pursuit The mortal elements; in every nerve

Of knowledge bent, it starves the grosser powers It thrills with pleasure, or grows mad with pain. Quite unemploy'd, against its own repose And, in its secret conclave, as it feels

It turns its fatal edge, and sharper pangs The body's woes and joys, this ruling power Than what the body knows imbitter life. Wields at its will the dull material world, Chiefly where solitude, sad nurse of care, And is the body's health or malady.

To sickly musing gives the pensive mind, By its own toil the gross corporeal frame There madness enters; and the dim-ey'd fiend, Fatigues, extenuates, or destroys itself.

Sour Melancholy, night and day provokes Nor less the labors of the mind corrode

Her own eternal wound. The Sun grows pale; The solid fabric: for by subtle parts

A mournful visionary light o'erspreads And viewless atoms, secret Nature moves The chuerful face of Nature: Earth becomes The mighty wheels of this stupendous world.. A dreary desert, and Heaven frowns above. By subtle fluids pour'd through subtle tubes, Then various shapes of curs'd illusion rise : The natural vital functions are perform'd. Whate'er the wretched fears, creating fear By these the stubborn aliments are tam'd; Forms out of nothing, and with monsters teems The toiling heart distributes life and strength; Unknown in Hell. The prostrate soul beneath These the still-crumbling frame rebuild ; and these A load of huge imagination heaves ; Are lost in thinking, and dissolve in air.

And all the horrors that the murderer feels But 'tis not thought, (for still the soul's em. With anxious flutterings wake the guiltless breas'. ploy’d)

Such phantoms pride in solitary scenes, "Tis painful thinking that corrodes our clay. Or fear, or delicate self-love creates. All day the vacant eye without fatigue

From other cares absolv'd, the busy mind Strays o'er the Heaven and Earth; but long intent Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon ; On inicroscopic arts, its vigor fails.

It finds you miserable, or makes you so. Just so the mind, with various thought amus'd, For while yourself you anxiously explore, Nor aches itself, nor gives the body pain.

Timorous self-love, with sick'ning fancy's aid, But anxious study, discontent, and care,

Presents the danger that you dread the most,
Love without hope, and hate without revenge, And ever galls you in your tender part.
And fear, and jealousy, fatigue the soul,

Hence some for love, and some for jealousy,
Engross the subtle ministers of life,

For grim religion some, and some for pride, And spoil the lab'ring functions of their share. Have lost their reason: some for fear of want, Hence the lean gloom that melancholy wears ; Want all their lives ; and others every day The lover's paleness ; and the sallow hue

For fear of dying suffer worse than death. of envy, jealousy; the meagre stare

Ah! from your bosoms banish if you can Of sore revenge: the canker'd body hence Those fatal guests; and first the demon Fear, Betrays each fretful motion of the mind.

That trembles at impossible events ; The strong-built pedant, who both night and day Lest aged Atlas should resign his load, Feeds on the coarsest fare the schools bestow, And Heaven's eternal battlements rush down. And crudely faltens at gross Burman's stall;

there an evil worse than fear itself? O'erwhelm'd with phlegm lies in a dropsy drown'd, And what avails it that indulgent Heaven Or sinks in lethargy before his time.

From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come, With useful studies you, and arts that please, If we, ingenious to torment ourselves, Employ your mind; amuse, but not fatigue. Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own? Peace to each drowsy metaphysic sage!

Enjoy the present: nor with needless cares, And ever may all heavy systems rest!

Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb, Yet some there are, even of elastic parts,

Appal the surest hour that life bestows. Whom strong and obstinate ambition leads Serene, and master of yourself, prepare Through all the rugged roads of barren lore, For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven And gives to relish what their generous taste Oft from the body, by long ails mis-tun'd, Would else refuse. But may not thirst of fame, These evils sprung, the most important health, Nor love of knowledge, urge you to fatigue That of the mind, destroy: and when the mind With constant drudgery the liberal soul.

They first invade, the conscious body soon Toy with your books; and, as the various fits In sympathetic languishment declines. of humor seize you, from philosophy

These chronic passions, while from real woes To fable shift; from serious Antonine

They rise, and yet without the body's fault To Rabelais' ravings, and from prose to song. Infest the soul, admit one only cure ;

While reading pleases, but no longer, read; Diversion, hurry, and a restless life. And read aloud resounding Homer's strain, Vain are the consolations of the wise ; And wield the thunder of Demosthenes.

In vain your friends would reason down your pain. The chest so exercis'd improves its strength; O ye, whose souls relentless love has tam'd And quick vibrations through the bowels drive To soft distress, or friends untimely fallin! The restless blood, which in unactive days Court not the luxury of tender thought; Would loiter else through unelastic tubes. Nor deem it impious to forget those pains Deem it not trifling while I recommend

That hurt the living, nought avail the dead. What posture suits : to stand and sit by turns, Go, soft enthusiast! quit the cypress groves, As nature prompts, is best. But o'er your leaves Nor to the rivulet's lonely moanings tune 90

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m

Your sad complaint. Go, seek the cheerful haunts How to live happiest ; how avoid the pains,
Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd; The disappointments, and disgusts of those
Lay schemes for wealth, or power, or fame, the Who would in pleasure all their hours employ;
wish

The precepts here of a divine old man
Of nobıer minds, and push them night and day. I could recite. Though old, he still retain'd
Or join the caravan in quest of scenes

His manly sense, and energy of mind.
New to your eyes, and shifting every hour, Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;
Beyond the Alps, beyond the Apennines.

He still remember'd that he once was young:
Or more advent'rous, rush into the field

His easy presence check'd no decent joy. Where war grows hot; and, raging through the sky, Him even the dissolute admir'd; for he The lofly trumpet swells the madd’ning soul: A graeeful looseness when he pleas'd put on, And in the hardy camp and toilsome march And laughing could instruct. Much had he read, Forgel ail softer and less manly cares.

Much more had seen : he studied from the life, But most, too passive when ihe blood runs low, And in th' original perus'd mankind. Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,

Vers'd in the #oes and vanities of life, And bravely by resisting conquer fate,

He pitied man: and much he pitied those
Try Circe's arts; and in the tempting bowl Whom falsely-smiling fate has curs'd with means
Of poison'd nectar sweet oblivion swill.

To dissipate their days in quest of joy.
Struck hy the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves“ Our aim is happiness ; 'tis yours, 'tis mine,"
In emply air, Elysium opens round;

He said ; " 'tis the pursuit of all that live :
A pleasing frenzy buoys the lighten'd soul, Yet few attain it, if 'twas e'er attain'd.
And sanguine hopes dispel your feeting care ; But they the widest wander from the mark,
And wnat was difficuli, and what was dire, Who through the flowery path of sauntering joy
Yields to your prowess and superior slars : Seek this coy goddess ; that from stage lo stage
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad, Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue.
Or are, or shall be, could this fully last.

For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings But soon your Heaven is gone ; a heavier gloom To counterpoise itself, relentless fate Shuts o'er your head : and as the thund'ring Forbids that we through gay voluptuous wilds stream,

Should ever roam: and were the fates more kind, Swoln o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain, Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale : Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook ;

Were these exhaustless, nature would grow sick, So, when the frantic raptures in your breast And, cloy'd with pleasure, squeamishly complain Subside, you languish into mortal man;

That all is vanity, and life a dream. You sleep, and waking find yourself undone. Let nature rest : be busy for

urself, For, prodigal of life, in one rash night

And for your friend; be busy even in vain,
You lavish more than might support three days. Rather than tease her sated appetites.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return Who never fasts, no banquet e'er enjoys;
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well Who never toils or watches, never sleeps.
May be endur'd; so may the throbbing head; Let nature rest: and when the taste of joy
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,

Grows keen, indulge ; but shun satiety.
Involves you ; such a dastardly despair

“ 'Tis not for mortals always to be blest.
Unmans your soul, as madd’ning Pentheus felt, But him the least the dull or painful hours
When, baited round Cytheron's cruel sides, of life oppress, whom sober sense conducts,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend. And virtue, through this labyrinth we tread.
You curse the sluggish port; you curse the wretch, Virtue and sense I mean not to disjoin ;
The felon, with unnatural mixture first

Virtue and sense are one ; and, trust me, still
Who dar'd to violate the virgin wine.

A faithless heart betrays the head unsound. Or on the fugitive champaign you pour

Virtue (for mere good-nature is a fool) A inousand curses, for to Ileav'n it wrapt Is sense and spirit with humanity : Your soul, to plunge you deeper in despair. 'Tis sometimes angry, and its frown confounds ; Perhaps you rue even that diviner gift,

'Tis even vindictive, but in vengeance just. The gny, serene, good-natur'd Burgundy,

Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great ones dare , Or the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine: But at his heart the most undaunted son And wish that Heaven from mortals had withheld of fortune dreads its name and awful charms. The grape, and all intoxicating bowls.

To noblest uses this determines wealth ; Besides, it wounds you sore to recollect This is the solid pomp of prosperous days; What follies in your loose unguarded hour The peace and sheller of adversity. Escap'd. For one irrevocable word,

And if you pant for glory, build your fame Perhaps that meant no harm, you lose a friend. On this foundation, which the secret shock Or in the rage of wine your hasty hand

Defies of envy and all-sapping lime. Performs a deed to haunt you to the grave. The gaudy gloss of fortune only strikes Add that your means, your health, your parts, decay; The vulgar eye; the suffrage of the wise, Your friends avoid you ; brutishly transform'd, The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd They hardly know you ; or if one remains By sense alone, and dignity of mind. To wish you well, he wishes you in Heaven. “ Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, Despis'd, unwept, you fall; who might have left Is the best gift of Heaven: a happiness A sacred-cherish'd, sadly-pleasing name;

That even above the smiles and frowns of fate A name still to be utter'd with a sigh.

Exalts great Nature's favorites ; a wealth Your last ungrateful scene has quite effac'd That ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr'd. All sense and memory of your former worth. Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;

a

Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave, In wanton and unmanly tenderness,
Or throw a cruel sun-shine on a fool.

Adds bloom to health; o'er ev'ry virtue sheds But for one end, one much-neglected use,

A gay, humane, a sweet, and generous grace,
Are riches worth your care ; (for Nature's wants And brightens all the ornaments of man.
Are few, and without opulence supplied ;) But fruitless, hopeless, disappointed, rack'd
This noble end is, to produce the soul;

With jealousy, fatigu'd with hope and fear,
To show the virtues in their fairest light;

Too serious, or too languishingly fond, To make humanity the minister

Unnerves the body and unmans the soul. or bounteous Providence; and teach the breast And some have died for love; and some run mad; That generous luxury the gods enjoy."

And some with desperate hands themselves have Thus, in his graver vein, the friendly sage

slain. Sometimes declaim'd. Or right and wrong he taught Some to extinguish, others to prevent, Truths as relin'd as ever Athens heard ;

A mad devotion to one dangerous fair, And (strange to tell!) he practis'd what he preach'd. Court all they meet; in hopes to dissipate Skill'd in the passions, how to check their sway, The cares of love amongst an hundred brides. He knew, as far as reason can control

Th' event is doubtful; for there are who find The lawless powers. But other cares are mine : A cure in this; there are who find it not. Form'd in the school of Pæon, I relate

"Tis no relief, alas! it rather galls What passions hurt the body, what improve: The wound, to those who are sincerely sick. Avoid them, or invite them as you may.

For while from severish and tumultuous joys Know then, wbatever cheerful and serene The nerves grow languid, and the soul subsides, Supports the mind, supports the body too.

The tender fancy smarts with every sting,
Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel And what was love before is madness now."
Is hope: the balm and life-blood of the soul. Is health your care, or luxury your aim ?
It pleases, and it lasts. Indulgent Heaven

Be temperate still: when Nature bids, obey ; Sent down the kind delusion, through the paths Her wild impatient sallies bear no curb : of rugged life to lead us patient on;

But when the prurient habit of delight,
And make our happiest stale no tedious thing. Or loose imagination, spurs you on
Our greatest good, and what we least can spare, To deeds above your strength, impute it not
Is hope: the last of all our evils, sear.

To Nature: Nature all compulsion hates.
But there are passions grateful to the breast, Ah! let not luxury nor vain renown
And yet no friends to life: perhaps they please Urge you to seats you well might sleep without;
Or to excess, and dissipate the soul;

To make what should be rapture a fatigue, Or while they please, torment. The stubborn A tedious task ; nor in the wanton arms clown,

Or iwining Lais melt your manhood down. The ill-tam'dt rusian, and pale usurer,

For from the colliquation of soft joys (If Love's omnipotence such hearts can mould,) How chang'd you rise! the ghost of what you was May safely mellow into love; and grow

Languid, and melancholy, and gaunt, and wan; Relin'd, humane, and generous, if they can.

Your veins exhausted, and your nerves unstrung. Love in such bosoms never to a fault

Spoil'd of its balm and sprightly zest, the blood Or pains or pleases. But ye finer souls,

Grows vapid phlegm; along the tender nerves Form'd to sost luxury, and prompt to thrill |(To each slight impulse tremblingly awake) With all the tumults, all the joys and pains, A subile fiend that mimics all the plagues, That beauty gives; with caution and reserve Rapid and restless springs from part to part. Indulge the sweet destroyer of repose,

The blooming honors of your youth are fallen ; Nor court too much the queen of charming cares. Your vigor pines; your vital powers decay ; For, while the cherish'd poison in your breast Diseases haunt you ; and untimely age Ferments and maddens; sick with jealousy, Creeps on ; unsocial, impotent, and lewd. Absence, distrust, or even with anxious joy, Infatuate, impious epicure! to waste The wholesome appetites and powers of life The stores of pleasure, cheerfulness, and health! Dissolve in languor. The coy stomach lothes Infatuate all who make delight their trade, The genial board : your cheersul days are gone; And coy perdition every hour pursue. The generous bloom that flush'd you- cheeks is filed. Who pines with love, or in lascivious flames To sighs devoted and to tender pains,

Consumes, is with his own consent undone ; Pensive you sit, or solitary stray,

He chooses to be wretched, to be mad; And waste your youih in niusing. Musing first. And warn'd, proceeds, and wilful to his fate. Toy'd into care your unsuspecting heart:

But there's a passion, whose tempestuous sway It found a liking there, a sportful fire,

Tears up each virtue planted in his breast, And that fomented into serious love ;

And shakes to ruins proud philosophy. Which musing daily strengthens and improves For pale and trembling anger rushes in, Through all the heights of fondness and romance: With falt'ring speech, and eyes that wildly stare ; And you 're undone, the fatal shaft has sped, Fierce as the tiger, madder than the seas, If once you doubt whether you love or no. Desperate, and arm'd with more than human strength The body wastes away; th' infected mind, How soon the calm, humane, and polish'd man Dissolv'd in female tenderness, forgets

Forgets compunction, and starts up a fiend! Each manly virtue, and grows dead to fame. Who pines in love, or wastes with silent cares, Sweet Heaven, from such intoxicating charms Envy, or ignominy, or tender grief, Defend all worthy breasts! not that I deem Slowly descends and ling'ring, to the shades : Love always dangerous, always to be shunn'd. But he whom anger stings, drops, if he dies, Love well repaid, and not too weakly sunk At once, and rushes apoplectic down;