The growing pest, whose infancy was weak
And easy vanquish'd, with triumphant sway
O'erpow'rs your life. For want of timely care,
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:
The all-surrounding Heaven, the vital air,
Is big with death. And, though the putrid South
Be shut; though no convulsive agony
Shake, from the deep foundations of the world,
Th' imprison'd plagues; a secret venom oft
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!
Even Albion, girt with less malignant skies,
Albion the poison of the gods has drank,
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,
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 gigantic arm
Arose, a monster, never known before,
Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.
This rapid fury not, like other pests,
Pursu'd a gradual course, but in a day
Rush'd as a storm o'er half the astonish'd isle,
And strew'd with sudden carcasses the land.

Of many thousands, few untainted 'scap'd ;
Of those infected, fewer 'scap'd alive:
Of those who liv'd, some felt a second blow;
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,
Th' infected country rush'd into the town.
Some, sad at home, and in the desert some,
Abjur'd the fatal commerce of mankind:

:

In vain where'er they fled, the fates pursu’d.
Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main,
To seek protection in far-distant skies;

But none they found. It seem'd the general air,
From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east,
Was then at enmity with English blood.
For, but the race of England, all were safe
In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste
The foreign blood which England 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,
In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.

To Heaven with suppliant rites they sent their pray'rs;
Heav'n heard them not. Of every hope depriv'd;
Fatigued with vain resources; and subdu'd
With woes resistless and enfeebling fear;
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then
To tend the sick, and in their turns to die.
In heaps they fell: and oft one bed, they say,
The sick'ning, dying, and the dead contain'd.

Ye guardian gods, on whom the fates depend
Of tottering Albion! ye eternal fires
That lead through Heav'n the wandering year! ye

powers

That o'er th' encircling elements preside!
May nothing worse than what this age has seen
Arrive! Enough abroad, enough at home
Has Albion bled. Here a distemper'd heaven
Has thinn'd her cities, from those lofty cliffs
That awe proud Gaul, to Thule's wintry reign;
While in the west, beyond the Atlantic foam,
Her bravest sons, keen for the fight, have died
The death of cowards and of common men:
Sunk void of wounds, and fall'n without renown.

First, through the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seiz'd the first, a fervid vapor sprung.
With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within;
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.
Through all the yielded pores, the melted blood
Gush'd out in smoky 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,
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.

At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head,
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
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:
Now free and copious, now restrain'd and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature

THE PASSIONS.

THE choice of aliment, the choice of air,
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
Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.
Here lay their hopes (though little hope remain'd)
With full effusion of perpetual sweats

To drive the venom out. And here the fates
Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain;
For who surviv'd the Sun's diurnal race
Rose from the dreary gates of Hell redeem'd :
Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third.

But from these views the weeping Muses turn, And other themes invite my wandering song.

Book IV.

What good, what evil, from ourselves proceeds:
And how the subtle principle within

Inspires with health, or mines with strange decay
The passive body. Ye poetic shades
Who know the secrets of the world unseen,
Assist my song! for, in a doubtful theme
Engag'd, I wander through mysterious ways.

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.
Meanwhile 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
Wields 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.
Nor less the labors of the mind corrode
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 through subtle tubes,
The natural vital functions are perform'd.
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.

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,
Or sinks in lethargy before his time.
With useful studies you, and arts that please,
Employ your mind; amuse, but not fatigue.
Peace to each drowsy metaphysic sage!
And ever may all heavy systems rest!
Yet some there are, even of elastic parts,
Whom strong and obstinate ambition leads
Through all the rugged roads of barren lore,
And gives to relish what their generous taste
Would else refuse. But may not thirst of fame,
Nor love of knowledge, urge you to fatigue
With constant drudgery the liberal soul.
Toy with your books; and, as the various fits
Of humor seize you, from philosophy
To fable shift; from serious Antonine
To Rabelais' ravings, and from prose to song.

But 'tis not thought, (for still the soul's em- With anxious flutterings wake the guiltless breast.

ploy'd)

"Tis painful thinking that corrodes our clay.

Such phantoms pride in solitary scenes,
Or fear, or delicate self-love creates.
From other cares absolv'd, the busy mind

All day the vacant eye without fatigue
Strays o'er the Heaven and Earth; but long intent Finds in yourself a theme to pore upon;
On microscopic arts, its vigor fails.
Just so the mind, with various thought amus'd,
Nor aches itself, nor gives the body pain.
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,

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
Betrays each fretful motion of the mind..

While reading pleases, but no longer, read;
And read aloud resounding Homer's strain,
And wield the thunder of Demosthenes.
The chest so exercis'd improves its strength;
And quick vibrations through the bowels drive
The restless blood, which in unactive days
Would loiter else through unelastic tubes.
Deem it not trifling while I recommend
What posture suits: to stand and sit by turns,
As nature prompts, is best. But o'er your leaves
90

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
Of knowledge bent, it starves the grosser powera
Quite unemploy'd, against its own repose
It turns its fatal edge, and sharper pangs
Than what the body knows imbitter life.
Chiefly where olitude, sad nurse of care,
To sickly musing gives the pensive mind,
There madness enters; and the dim-ey'd fiend,
Sour Melancholy, night and day provokes
Her own eternal wound. The Sun grows pale;
A mournful visionary light o'erspreads
The cheerful face of Nature: Earth becomes
A dreary desert, 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
Unknown in Hell. The prostrate soul beneath
A load of huge imagination heaves;
And all the horrors that the murderer feels

It finds you miserable, or makes you so.
For while yourself you anxiously explore,
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,
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,
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
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?
Enjoy the present: nor with needless cares,
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
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 mis-tun'd,
These evils sprung, the most important health,
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
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
O ye, whose souls relentless love has tam'd
To soft distress, or friends untimely fall'n!
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,
Nor to the rivulet's lonely moanings tune
3 K 2

The stubborn A tedious task; nor in the wanton arms Of twining Lais melt your manhood down. For from the colliquation of soft joys

Where reason proves too weak, or void of wiles
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.

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;

And sudden grief, and rage, and sudden joy.
There are, meantime, to whom the boist'rous fit Can soothe distraction, and almost despair.
Is health, and only fills the sails of life.
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 spurus th' incumbent load,
Unlocks the breast, and gives a cordial glow.
But if your wrathful blood is apt to boil,
Or are your nerves too irritably strung,
Waive all dispute; be cautious, if you joke;
Keep Lent for ever, and forswear the bowl.
For one rash moment sends you to the shades,
Or shatters ev'ry hopeful scheme of life,
And gives to horror all your days to come.
Fate, arm'd with thunder, fire, and ev'ry plague,
That ruins, tortures, or distracts mankind,
And makes the happy wretched in an hour,
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;
If honor bids, to-morrow kill or die.
But calm advice against a raging fit
Avails too little; and it braves the power
Of all that ever taught in prose or song,
To tame the fiend, that sleeps a gentle lamb,
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.
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?

Or a fierce fever hurries him to Hell.
For, as the body through unnumber'd strings
Reverberates each vibration of the soul;
As is the passion, such is still the pain
The body feels: or chronic, or acute.
And oft a sudden storm at once o'erpowers
The life, or gives your reason to the winds.
Such fates attend the rash alarm of fear,

That power is music: far beyond the stretch
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 wondrous feats, but never heard of grace.
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 show of rapture, die
Of idiot notes impertinently long.

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 sound,
Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul;
Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain,
In love dissolves you; now in sprightly strains
Breathes a gay rapture through your thrilling breasts,
Or melts the hearts with airs divinely sad;
Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings.
Such was the bard, whose heavenly strains of old
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 melodious lyre,
Tun'd to soft woe, made all the mountains weep;
Sooth'd even th' inexorable powers of Hell,
And half-redeem'd his lost Eurydice.

Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison and of plague;
And hence the wise of ancient days ador'd
One power of physic melody, and song