Elegant Extracts

In deep oblivion; or on Fancy's wings
Visit the paradise of happy dreams,
And waken cheerful as the lively morn ;
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
And trouble of the day to heavier toil [rocks
Retires, whom trembling from the tow'r that
Amid the clouds, or Calpe's hideous height,
The busy demons hurl, or in the main
O'erwhelm, or bury struggling under ground.
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,
Stungbythe Furies, works with poison'd thought;
While pale and monstrous panting shocks the
And mangled consciousness bemoans itself [soul,
For ever torn, and chaos floating round.
What dreams presage, what dangers these or
Portend to sanity, the prudent scers [those.
Reveal'd of old, and men of deathless fame,
We would not to the superstitious mind
Suggest new throbs, new vanity of fear:
Tis ours to teach you from the peaceful night,

To banish omens and all restless woes.

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
What season you to drousy 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.
The body, fresh and vigorous from repose,
Defies the early fogs; but, by the toils
Of wakeful day exhausted and unstrung,
Weakly resists the night's unwholesome breath:
The grand discharge, th' effusion of the skin,
Slowly impair'd, the languid nedadies
Creep on, and thro' the sick'ning 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 flow'rs, condemn'd.
To cruel heavens. But why, already prone
To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane?
Oh shame! oh pity! nipt with pale Quadrille
And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies!
By toil subdued, the warrior and the hind
Sleep fast and deep: their active functions soon
With generous streams the subtle tubes supply,
And soon the tonic irritable nerves

Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain
And springly nerves, the blandishments of
Nor envy while the buried Bacchanal [down;"
Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams.

He without riot, in the balmy feast
Of life, the wants of nature has supplied,
Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul.
But pliant nature more or less demands
As custom forms her; and all sudden change
She hates of habit, ev 'n 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,
Slow as the stealing progress of the year.
Observe the circling year. How unperceiv'd
Her seasons change! Behold, by slow degrees,
Stern Winter tan'd into a ruder Spring;
The ripen'd Spring a milder Summer glows;
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,
The two great periods of th' important year,
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,
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
Glides harmless by; and Autumn, sick to death
With sallow quartans, no contagion breathes.

Feel the fresh impulse, and awake the soul.
The sons of Indolence with long repose
Grow torpid; and, with slowest Lethe drunk,
Feebly and ling'ringly return to life,
Blunt ev'ry sense, and pow'rless ev'ry limb.
Ye prone to sleep (whoin sleeping most annoys)
On the hard mattrass or elastic couch [sloth;
Extend your limbs, and wean yourself from

I iu prophetic numbers could unfold
The omens of the year: what seasons teem
With what diseases; what the humid South
Prepares, and what the Demon of the East:
But you perhaps refuse the tedious song.
Besides, whatever plagues, in heat, or cold,
Or drought, or moisture dwell, they hurt not
Skill'd to correct the vices of the sky, [you,
And taught already how to each extreme
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
Along the spine, through 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.
While wilful you, and fatally secure,
Expect to-morrow's more auspicious sun,
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 fraine! Of indolence, of toil,
We die; of wam, of superfluity:
Gg3

The

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 foundation of the world,
Th' imprison'd plagues, a secret venom oft
Corrupts the air, the water, and the land,
What livid deaths has sad Byzantiuni seen!
How oft has Cairo, with a mother's woe,
Wepto'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 antient rage at Bosworth's purple field;
While, for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd,
And daily borrors; till the fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred hands profus'd:
Another plague of more gigantic armı
Arose; a monster never known before
Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.
This rapid fury not, like other pests,
Pursued a gradual course, but in a day
Rush'd as a storm o'er half the astonish'd isle,
And strew'd with sudden carcases the land.

First thro' the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seis'd the first, a fervid vapor sprung.
With rash combustion thence the quiv'ring
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within: [spark
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.
Thro' all the yielding pores the melted blood
Gush'dout in smoky sweats; but nought assuag'd
The torrid heat within, nor aught reliev'd
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,
Desperate of case, 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
At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head, [heav'd:
A wild delirium came; their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harass'd with toil on toil, the sinking pow'rs
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown; a pond 'rous sleep
Wrapp'd 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 various tinctures, as the temp'rature
Had mix'd the blood, with rank and fetid
As if the pent-up humors by delay [steams:
Were grown more fell, more putrid, and inalign.
Here lay their hopes (tho litle hope remain'd),
With full effusion of perpetual sweets

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.

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 pursued.
Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the
To seek protection in far distant skies; [main,
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 the fury taste [tain'd.
The foreign blood which England then con-
Where should they fly? The circumambient

heaven

Involv'd them still; and ev'ry 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; [priv'd;

Heaven heard them not. Of ev'ry hope
Fatigued with vain resources; and subdued
With woes resistless and enfeebling fear;
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds were heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair.

'Twas all the bus'ness 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 tort'ring Albion! ye eternal fires [pow'rs That lead thro' heaven the wand'ring year! ye That o'er the 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 wint'ry 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: Sunk void of wounds, and fall'n without renown. But from these views the weeping Muses turn, And other themes invite my wand'ring song.

BOOK IV. THE PASSIONS.

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 Inspires with health, or mines with strange deThe passive body. Ye poetic shades, [cay That know the secrets of the world unseen, Assist my song! for, in a doubtful theme Engag'd, I wander thro' mysterious ways.

There

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 ev'ry 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 pow'r
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 Huids pour'd thro' subtle tubes,
The nat'ral, 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.
But 'tis not Thought (for still the soul's
employ'd),

And wield the thunder of Demosthenes.
The chest so exercis'd improves its strength;
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,
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
Of knowledge bent, it starves the grosser pow'rs:
Quite unemploy'd, against its own repose
It turns its fatal edge, and sharper pangs
Than what the body knows enibitter life,
Chiefly where Solitude, sad nurse of Care,
To sickly musing gives the pensive mind,
There Madness enters; and the dim-eyed Fiend,
Sour Melancholy, night and day provokes
Her own eterual 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 teem
Unknown in hell, The prostrate soul beneath
A load of huge imagination heaves;
And all the horrors that the murd'rer feels
With anxious flutt'rings wake the guiltless breast,
Such phantoms Pride in solitary scenes,)
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.
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 other's ev'ry 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,

'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 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. [day
The strong-built peasant, who both night and
Feeds on the coarsest fare the schools bestow,
And erudely fattens at gross Burman's stall;
O'erwhelmi'd with phlegm lies in a dropsy
Or sinks in lethargy before his time. [drown'd,
With youthful studies you, and arts that please,That trembles at impossible events,
Employ your mind; amuse, but not fatigue,
Peace to each drowsy metaphysic sage!
And ever may all heavy systems rest!
Yet some there are, ev'n of elastic parts,
Whom strong and obstinate ambition leads
Thro' all the rugged roads of barren lore,
And gives to relish what their gen'rous taste
Would else refuse. But may nor thirst of fame,
Nor love of knowledge, urge you to fatigue
With constant drudgery the lib'ral soul
Toy with your books: and, as the various fits
Of humor seise you, from Philosophy
To fable shift, from serious Antoning
To Rabelais' ravings, and from prose to song,
While reading pleases, but no longer, read;
And read aloud resounding Homer's strain,

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 whom 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 inistun'd,
These evils spring, the most important health,
That of the inind, destroy; and when the mind
Gg 4
The

[pain.

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
O ye, whose souls relentless love has tam'd'
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,
Nor to the rivulet's lonely moanings tune
Your sad complaint. Go, seek the cheerful haunts
Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd;
Lay schemes for wealth, or pow'r, or fame, the
wish

Of noble minds, and push them night and day,
Or join the caravan in quest of scenes
New to your eyes, and shifting ev'ry hour,
Beyond the Alps, beyond the Apennines.
Or, more advent'rous, rush into the field
Where war grows hot; and, raging thro' the sky,
The lofty trumpet swells the madd'ning soul;
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,
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 pow'rfulcharm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round.

A pleasing phrensy 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,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone; a heavier gloom
Shuts o'er your head: and, as the thund'ring

stream,

Swoln o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook;
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.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endur'd; so may the throbbing heart:
But such a dim deliriumi, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unimans your soul, and madd'ning Pentheus felt
When, baited round Citharon's cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes, ascend.
You curse the sluggish Port; you curse the wretch,
The felon, with unnat'ral mixture first-
Who dar'd to violate the virgin wine.
Or on the fugitive Champaign you pour
A thousand curses; for to heaven it rapt

Your soul, to plunge you deeper in despair.
Perhaps you rue ev'n that divinest gift.
The gay, serene, good-natur'd Burgundy,
Or the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine;
And wish that Heaven from mortals had withheld
The grape, and all intoxicating bowls.

Besides, it wounds you sore to recollect
What follies in your loose unguarded hour
Escap'd. For 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.
Add, that your means, your health, your parts

decay:

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
A sacred, cherish'd, sadly-pleasing name;
A name sull to be utter'd with a sigh.
Your last ungraceful scene has quite effac'd
All sense and men'ry of your former worth.

How to live happiest; how avoid the pains,
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.
Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;
He still remember'd that he once was young;
His casy presence check'd no decent joy.
Him ev'n the dissolute admir'd: for he
A graceful looseness, when he pleas'd, put on;
And laughing could 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 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 't was e'er attain'd. 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 sill, but shifts as we pursue. For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings 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; And cloy'd with pleasure, squeamishly complain That all was vanity, and like a dream. Let nature rest: be busy for yourself, | And for your friend; be busy ev'n in vain, Rather than tease her sated appetites. Who never fasts, no banquets e'er enjoys; Who never toils or watches, never sleeps. Let nature rest and when the take of joy Grows keen, indulge; but shum satiety.

'Tis not for mortals always to be blest. But him the least the dull or painful hours

Of life oppress, whom sober Sense conducts,
And Virtue, thro' this labyrinth we tread.
Virtue and Sense I mean not to disjoin;
Virtue and Sense are one: and, trust me, still
A faithless heart betrays the head unsound.
Virtue (for mere good-nature is a fool)
Is Sense and Spirit, with Humanity:
'Tis sometimes angry, and its frown confounds;
"Tis ev'n vindictive, but in vengeance just,
Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great ones
But at his heart the most undaunted son [dare;
Of fortune dreads its name and awful charais.
To noblest uses this determines wealth;
This is the solid pomp of prosp'rous days,
The peace and shelter of adversity.
And, if you pant for glory, build for fame
On this foundation, which the secret shock
Defies of Envy and all-sapping Time.
The gaudy gloss of Fortune only strikes
The vulgar eye; the suff'rage 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
That ev'n above the smiles and frowns of fate
Exalts great Nature's favorites; a wealth
That ne'er encumbers, nor to baser hands
Can be transferr'd: it is the only good
Man justly boasts of, or can call his own.
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
Are few, and without opulence supplied) :
This noble end is, to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in the fairest light;
To make humanity the minister

Of bounteous Providence: and teach the breast That gen'rous luxury the gods enjoy.

Thus, in his graver vein, the friendly sage Sometimes declaim'd. Of right and wrong he taught

Truths as refin'd as ever Athens heard ;
And (strange to tell!) he practis'd what he
preach'd.

Skill'd in the passions, how to check their sway
He knew, as far as reason can control
The lawless pow'rs. But other cares are mine.
Form'd in the school of Paan, I relate
What passions hurt the body, what improve:
Avoid them, or invite them, as you may.

Know then, whatever cheerful 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:
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,
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; [clown, Or while they please, torment. The stubborn The ill-tamed ruffian, and pale usurer.

[fled.

(If love's omnipotence such hearts could mould)
May safely mellow into love; and grow
Refin'd, humane, and gen'rous, if they can.
Love in such bosoms never to a fault
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,
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 wholesome appetites and pow'rs of life
Dissolve in languor. The coy stomach loaths
The genial board; your cheerful days are gone;
The gen'rous bloom that flush'd your cheeks is
To sighs devoted, and to tender pains,
Pensive you sit, or solitary stray,
And waste your youth in musing. Musing first
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
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
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 shunn'd.
Love well repaid, and not too weakly sunk
In wanton and unmanly tenderness,
Adds bloom to health; o'er ev'ry virtue sheds
A gay, humane, and amiable grace,
And brightens all the ornaments of man.
But. fruuless, hopeless, disappointed, rack'd
With jealousy, fatigu'd with hope and fear,
Too serious, or too languishingly fond,
Unnerves the body, aud unmans the soul,
And some have died for love, and some run mad;
And some with desp'rate hand themselves have

Some to extinguish, others to prevent, [slain.
A mad devotion to one dang'rous Fair,
Court all they meet; in hopes to dissipate
The cares of love amongst an hundred brides.
Th' event is doubtful: for there are who find
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 fev'rish and tumultuous joys
The nerves grow languid, and the soil subsides,
The tender fancy smarts with ev'ry sting,
And what was love before is madness now.
Is health your care, or luxury your aim?
Be temp'rate still: when Nature bids, obey;
Her wild impatient sallies bear no curb :
But when the prurient habit of delight,
Or loose imagination, spurs you on

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