BOOK I.AIR.

Daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy,Hygeia1; whose indulgent smile sustainsThe various race luxuriant nature pours,And on th’ immortal essences bestowsImmortal youth; auspicious, O descend!5Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year,Whether thou wanton’st on the western gale,Or shak’st the rigid pinions of the north,Diffusest life and vigour thro’ the tractsOf air, thro’ earth, and ocean’s deep domain.10When thro’ the blue serenity of heav’nThy power approaches, all the wasteful hostOf pain and sickness, squallid and deform’d,Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom,Where in deep Erebus involv’d the fiends15Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death,Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,Swarm thro’ the shuddering air: whatever plaguesOr meagre famine breeds, or with slow wingsRise from the putrid watry element,20The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,That smothers earth and all the breathless winds,Or the vile carnage of th’ inhuman field;Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south;Whatever ills th’ extremes or sudden change25Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce;They fly thy pure effulgence: they, and allThe secret poisons of avenging heaven,And all the pale tribes halting in the trainOf vice and heedless pleasure: or if aught30The comet’s glare amid the burning sky,Mournful eclipse, or planets ill-combin’d,Portend disastrous to the vital world;Thy salutary power averts their rage,Averts the general bane: and but for thee35Nature would sicken, nature soon would die.Without thy chearful active energyNo rapture swells the breast, no poet sings,No more the maids of Helicon delight.Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly-gay!40Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws:“How best the fickle fabric to support“Of mortal man; in healthful body how“A healthful mind the longest to maintain.”45’Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuseThe best, and those of most extensive use;Harder in clear and animated songDry philosophic precepts to convey.Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace50Of nature, and with daring steps proceedThro’ paths the muses never trod before.Nor should I wander doubtful of my way,Had I the lights of that sagacious mindWhich taught to check the pestilential fire,55And quel the dreaded Python of the Nile.O Thou belov’d by all the graceful arts,Thou long the fav’rite of the healing powers,Indulge, OMead! a well-design’d essay,Howe’er imperfect: and permit that I60My little knowledge with my country share,Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,And with new graces dignify the theme.YE who amid this feverish world would wearA body free of pain, of cares a mind;65Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;Breathe not the chaos of eternal smokeAnd volatile corruption, from the dead,The dying, sickning, and the living worldExhal’d, to sully heaven’s transparent dome70With dim mortality. It is not airThat from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,Sated with exhalations rank and fell,The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thawOf nature; when from shape and texture she75Relapses into fighting elements:It is not air, but floats a nauseous massOf all obscene, corrupt, offensive things.Much moisture hurts; but here a sordid bath,With oily rancor fraught, relaxes more80The solid frame than simple moisture can.Besides, immur’d in many a sullen bayThat never felt the freshness of the breeze,This slumbring deep remains, and ranker growsWith sickly rest: and (tho’ the lungs abhor85To drink the dun fuliginous abyss)Did not the acid vigour of the mine,Roll’d from so many thundring chimneys, tameThe putrid salts that overswarm the sky;This caustick venom would perhaps corrode90Those tender cells that draw the vital air,In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew’d;Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawnIn countless pores o’er all the pervious skin,Imbib’d, would poison the balsamic blood,95And rouse the heart to every fever’s rage.While yet you breathe, away! the rural wildsInvite; the mountains call you, and the vales,The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breezeThat fans the ever undulating sky;100A kindly sky! whose fost’ring power regalesMan, beast, and all the vegetable reign.Find then some woodland scene where nature smilesBenign, where all her honest children thrive.To us there wants not many a happy seat;105Look round the smiling land, such numbers riseWe hardly fix, bewilder’d in our choice.See where enthron’d in adamantine state,Proud of her bards, imperial Windsor sits;There chuse thy seat, in some aspiring grove110Fast by the slowly-winding Thames; or whereBroader she laves fair Richmond’s green retreats,(Richmond that sees an hundred villas riseRural or gay.) O! from the summer’s rageO! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides115Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy townAttract thee still to toil for power or gold,Sweetly thou mayst thy vacant hours possessIn Hampstead, courted by the western wind;Or Greenwich, waving o’er the winding flood;120Or lose the world amid the sylvan wildsOf Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil’d.Green rise the Kentish hills in chearful air;But on the marshy plains that Essex spreadsBuild not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.125For on a rustic throne of dewy turf,With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,Quartana there presides; a meagre fiendBegot by Eurus, when his brutal forceCompress’d the slothful Naiad of the fens.130From such a mixture sprung this fitful pest,With feverish blasts subdues the sick’ning land:Cold tremors come, and mighty love of rest,Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and painsThat sting the burden’d brows, fatigue the loins,135And rack the joints, and every torpid limb;Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweatsO’erflow; a short relief from former ills.Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine;The vigour sinks, the habit melts away;140The chearful, pure and animated bloomDies from the face, with squalid atrophyDevour’d, in sallow melancholy clad.And oft the sorceress, in her sated wrath,Resigns them to the furies of her train;145The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiendTing’d with her own accumulated gall.In quest of sites, avoid the mournful plainWhere osiers thrive, and trees that love the lake;Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:150Nor for the wealth that all the Indies rollFix near the marshy margin of the main.For from the humid soil, and watry reign,Eternal vapours rise; the spungy airFor ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight155Of waters, pours a sounding deluge down.Skies such as these let every mortal shunWho dreads the dropsy, palsy, or the gout,Tertian, corrosive scurvy, or moist catarrh;Or any other injury that grows160From raw-spun fibres idle and unstrung,Skin ill-perspiring, and the purple floodIn languid eddies loitering into phlegm.Yet not alone from humid skies we pine;For air may be too dry. The subtle heaven,165That winnows into dust the blasted downs,Bare and extended wide without a stream,Too fast imbibes th’ attenuated lymphWhich, by the surface, from the blood exhales.The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essay170Their flexible vibrations; or inflam’d,Their tender ever-moving structure thaws.Spoil’d of its limpid vehicle, the bloodA mass of lees remains, a drossy tideThat slow as Lethe wanders thro’ the veins,175Unactive in the services of life,Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro’The secret mazy channels of the brain.The melancholic fiend, (that worst despairOf physic) hence the rust-complexion’d man180Pursues, whose blood is dry, whose fibres gainToo stretch’d a tone: And hence in climes adustSo sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves,And burning fevers glow with double rage.Fly, if you can, these violent extremes185Of air; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry.But as the power of chusing is deny’dTo half mankind, a further task ensues;How best to mitigate these fell extreams,How breathe unhurt the withering element,190Or hazy atmosphere: Tho’ custom mouldsTo every clime the soft Promethean clay;And he who first the fogs of Essex breath’d(So kind is native air) may in the fensOf Essex from inveterate ills revive195At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.But if the raw and oozy heaven offend,Correct the soil, and dry the sources upOf watry exhalation; wide and deepConduct your trenches thro’ the spouting bog;200Solicitous, with all your winding arts,Betray th’ unwilling lake into the stream;And weed the forest, and invoke the windsTo break the toils where strangled vapours lie;Or thro’ the thickets send the crackling flames.205Mean time, at home with chearful fires dispelThe humid air: And let your table smokeWith solid roast or bak’d; or what the herdsOf tamer breed supply; or what the wildsYield to the toilsom pleasures of the chase.210Generous your wine, the boast of rip’ning years,But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,Vapid and sunk from yesterday’s debauch,Shrinks from the cold embrace of watry heavens.But neither these, nor all Apollo’s arts,215Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky,Unless with exercise and manly toilYou brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.The fat’ning clime let all the sons of easeAvoid; if indolence would wish to live.220Go, yawn and loiter out the long slow yearIn fairer skies. If droughty regions parchThe skin and lungs, and bake the thick’ning blood;Deep in the waving forest chuse your seat,Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;225And wake the fountains from their secret beds,And into lakes dilate the running stream.Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,The moist relaxing vegetable storePrevail in each repast: Your food supplied230By bleeding life, be gently wasted down,By soft decoction and a mellowing heat,To liquid balm; or, if the solid massYou chuse, tormented in the boiling wave;That thro’ the thirsty channels of the blood235A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow.The fragrant dairy from its cool recessIts nectar acid or benign will pourTo drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowlOf keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve.240For with the viscous blood the simple streamWill hardly mingle; and fermented cupsOft dissipate more moisture than they give.Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rollsHis horrors o’er the world, thou may’st indulge245In feasts more genial, and impatient broachThe mellow cask. Then too the scourging airProvokes to keener toils than sultry droughtsAllow. But rarely we such skies blaspheme.Steep’d in continual rains, or with raw fogs250Bedew’d, our seasons droop; incumbent stillA ponderous heaven o’erwhelms the sinking soul.Lab’ring with storms in heapy mountains riseTh’ imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shadesHad left the dungeon of eternal night,255Till black with thunder all the south descends.Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulgeOur melting clime; except the baleful eastWithers the tender spring, and sourly checksThe fancy of the year. Our fathers talk260Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene.Good heaven! for what unexpiated crimesThis dismal change! The brooding elementsDo they, your powerful ministers of wrath,Prepare some fierce exterminating plague?265Or is it fix’d in the Decrees aboveThat lofty Albion melt into the main?Indulgent nature! O dissolve this gloom!Bind in eternal adamant the windsThat drown or wither: Give the genial west270To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly north:And may once more the circling seasons ruleThe year; not mix in every monstrous day.Mean time, the moist malignity to shunOf burthen’d skies; mark where the dry champain275Swells into chearful hills; where MarjoramAnd Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;And where the Cynorrhodon2with the roseFor fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soilMost fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.280There bid thy roofs high on the basking steepAscend, 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 behind285O’erhung, defends you from the blust’ring north,And bleak affliction of the peevish east.O! when the growling winds contend, and allThe sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,To sink in warm repose, and hear the din290Howl o’er the steady battlements, delightsAbove the luxury of vulgar sleep.The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strainOf waters rushing o’er the slippery rocks,Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.295To please the fancy is no trifling good,Where health is studied; for whatever movesThe mind with calm delight, promotes the justAnd natural movements of th’ harmonious frame.Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes300The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,From vale to mountain, with incessant changeOf purest element, refreshing stillYour airy seat, and uninfected Gods.Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds305High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sidesTh’ etherial deep with endless billows laves.His purer mansion nor contagious yearsShall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain,310Involve my hill. And wheresoe’er you build;Whether on sun-burnt Epsom, or the plainsWash’d by the silent Lee; in Chelsea low,Or high Blackheath with wintry winds assail’d;Dry be your house: but airy more than warm.315Else every breath of ruder wind will strikeYour tender body thro’ with rapid pains;Fierce coughs will teize you, hoarseness bind your voice,Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows.These to defy, and all the fates that dwell320In cloister’d air tainted with steaming life,Let lofty ceilings grace your ample rooms;And still at azure noontide may your domeAt every window drink the liquid sky.Need we the sunny situation here,325And theatres open to the south, commend?Here, where the morning’s misty breath infestsMore than the torrid noon? How sickly grow,How pale, the plants in those ill-fated valesThat, circled round with the gigantic heap330Of mountains, never felt, nor never hopeTo feel, the genial vigor of the sun!While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflamesThe verdant spring; in virgin beauty blowsThe tender lily, languishingly sweet;335O’er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,And autumn ripens in the summer’s ray.Nor less the warmer living tribes demandThe fost’ring sun: whose energy divineDwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat340Glows thro’ the mass of grosser elements,And kindles into life the pond’rous spheres.Chear’d by thy kind invigorating warmth,We court thy beams, great majesty of day!If not the soul, the regent of this world,345First born of heaven, and only less than God!

Daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy,

Hygeia1; whose indulgent smile sustains

The various race luxuriant nature pours,

And on th’ immortal essences bestows

Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend!5

Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year,

Whether thou wanton’st on the western gale,

Or shak’st the rigid pinions of the north,

Diffusest life and vigour thro’ the tracts

Of air, thro’ earth, and ocean’s deep domain.10

When thro’ the blue serenity of heav’n

Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host

Of pain and sickness, squallid and deform’d,

Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom,

Where in deep Erebus involv’d the fiends15

Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death,

Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe,

Swarm thro’ the shuddering air: whatever plagues

Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings

Rise from the putrid watry element,20

The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,

That smothers earth and all the breathless winds,

Or the vile carnage of th’ inhuman field;

Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south;

Whatever ills th’ extremes or sudden change25

Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce;

They fly thy pure effulgence: they, and all

The secret poisons of avenging heaven,

And all the pale tribes halting in the train

Of vice and heedless pleasure: or if aught30

The comet’s glare amid the burning sky,

Mournful eclipse, or planets ill-combin’d,

Portend disastrous to the vital world;

Thy salutary power averts their rage,

Averts the general bane: and but for thee35

Nature would sicken, nature soon would die.

Without thy chearful active energyNo rapture swells the breast, no poet sings,No more the maids of Helicon delight.Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly-gay!40Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws:“How best the fickle fabric to support“Of mortal man; in healthful body how“A healthful mind the longest to maintain.”45’Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuseThe best, and those of most extensive use;Harder in clear and animated songDry philosophic precepts to convey.Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace50Of nature, and with daring steps proceedThro’ paths the muses never trod before.

Without thy chearful active energy

No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings,

No more the maids of Helicon delight.

Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly-gay!40

Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,

And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws:

“How best the fickle fabric to support

“Of mortal man; in healthful body how

“A healthful mind the longest to maintain.”45

’Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuse

The best, and those of most extensive use;

Harder in clear and animated song

Dry philosophic precepts to convey.

Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace50

Of nature, and with daring steps proceed

Thro’ paths the muses never trod before.

Nor should I wander doubtful of my way,Had I the lights of that sagacious mindWhich taught to check the pestilential fire,55And quel the dreaded Python of the Nile.O Thou belov’d by all the graceful arts,Thou long the fav’rite of the healing powers,Indulge, OMead! a well-design’d essay,Howe’er imperfect: and permit that I60My little knowledge with my country share,Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,And with new graces dignify the theme.

Nor should I wander doubtful of my way,

Had I the lights of that sagacious mind

Which taught to check the pestilential fire,55

And quel the dreaded Python of the Nile.

O Thou belov’d by all the graceful arts,

Thou long the fav’rite of the healing powers,

Indulge, OMead! a well-design’d essay,

Howe’er imperfect: and permit that I60

My little knowledge with my country share,

Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,

And with new graces dignify the theme.

YE who amid this feverish world would wearA body free of pain, of cares a mind;65Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;Breathe not the chaos of eternal smokeAnd volatile corruption, from the dead,The dying, sickning, and the living worldExhal’d, to sully heaven’s transparent dome70With dim mortality. It is not airThat from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,Sated with exhalations rank and fell,The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thawOf nature; when from shape and texture she75Relapses into fighting elements:It is not air, but floats a nauseous massOf all obscene, corrupt, offensive things.Much moisture hurts; but here a sordid bath,With oily rancor fraught, relaxes more80The solid frame than simple moisture can.Besides, immur’d in many a sullen bayThat never felt the freshness of the breeze,This slumbring deep remains, and ranker growsWith sickly rest: and (tho’ the lungs abhor85To drink the dun fuliginous abyss)Did not the acid vigour of the mine,Roll’d from so many thundring chimneys, tameThe putrid salts that overswarm the sky;This caustick venom would perhaps corrode90Those tender cells that draw the vital air,In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew’d;Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawnIn countless pores o’er all the pervious skin,Imbib’d, would poison the balsamic blood,95And rouse the heart to every fever’s rage.While yet you breathe, away! the rural wildsInvite; the mountains call you, and the vales,The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breezeThat fans the ever undulating sky;100A kindly sky! whose fost’ring power regalesMan, beast, and all the vegetable reign.Find then some woodland scene where nature smilesBenign, where all her honest children thrive.To us there wants not many a happy seat;105Look round the smiling land, such numbers riseWe hardly fix, bewilder’d in our choice.See where enthron’d in adamantine state,Proud of her bards, imperial Windsor sits;There chuse thy seat, in some aspiring grove110Fast by the slowly-winding Thames; or whereBroader she laves fair Richmond’s green retreats,(Richmond that sees an hundred villas riseRural or gay.) O! from the summer’s rageO! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides115Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy townAttract thee still to toil for power or gold,Sweetly thou mayst thy vacant hours possessIn Hampstead, courted by the western wind;Or Greenwich, waving o’er the winding flood;120Or lose the world amid the sylvan wildsOf Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil’d.Green rise the Kentish hills in chearful air;But on the marshy plains that Essex spreadsBuild not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.125For on a rustic throne of dewy turf,With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,Quartana there presides; a meagre fiendBegot by Eurus, when his brutal forceCompress’d the slothful Naiad of the fens.130From such a mixture sprung this fitful pest,With feverish blasts subdues the sick’ning land:Cold tremors come, and mighty love of rest,Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and painsThat sting the burden’d brows, fatigue the loins,135And rack the joints, and every torpid limb;Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweatsO’erflow; a short relief from former ills.Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine;The vigour sinks, the habit melts away;140The chearful, pure and animated bloomDies from the face, with squalid atrophyDevour’d, in sallow melancholy clad.And oft the sorceress, in her sated wrath,Resigns them to the furies of her train;145The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiendTing’d with her own accumulated gall.

YE who amid this feverish world would wear

A body free of pain, of cares a mind;65

Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;

Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke

And volatile corruption, from the dead,

The dying, sickning, and the living world

Exhal’d, to sully heaven’s transparent dome70

With dim mortality. It is not air

That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,

Sated with exhalations rank and fell,

The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw

Of nature; when from shape and texture she75

Relapses into fighting elements:

It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass

Of all obscene, corrupt, offensive things.

Much moisture hurts; but here a sordid bath,

With oily rancor fraught, relaxes more80

The solid frame than simple moisture can.

Besides, immur’d in many a sullen bay

That never felt the freshness of the breeze,

This slumbring deep remains, and ranker grows

With sickly rest: and (tho’ the lungs abhor85

To drink the dun fuliginous abyss)

Did not the acid vigour of the mine,

Roll’d from so many thundring chimneys, tame

The putrid salts that overswarm the sky;

This caustick venom would perhaps corrode90

Those tender cells that draw the vital air,

In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew’d;

Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawn

In countless pores o’er all the pervious skin,

Imbib’d, would poison the balsamic blood,95

And rouse the heart to every fever’s rage.

While yet you breathe, away! the rural wilds

Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales,

The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze

That fans the ever undulating sky;100

A kindly sky! whose fost’ring power regales

Man, beast, and all the vegetable reign.

Find then some woodland scene where nature smiles

Benign, where all her honest children thrive.

To us there wants not many a happy seat;105

Look round the smiling land, such numbers rise

We hardly fix, bewilder’d in our choice.

See where enthron’d in adamantine state,

Proud of her bards, imperial Windsor sits;

There chuse thy seat, in some aspiring grove110

Fast by the slowly-winding Thames; or where

Broader she laves fair Richmond’s green retreats,

(Richmond that sees an hundred villas rise

Rural or gay.) O! from the summer’s rage

O! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides115

Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy town

Attract thee still to toil for power or gold,

Sweetly thou mayst thy vacant hours possess

In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;

Or Greenwich, waving o’er the winding flood;120

Or lose the world amid the sylvan wilds

Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil’d.

Green rise the Kentish hills in chearful air;

But on the marshy plains that Essex spreads

Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.125

For on a rustic throne of dewy turf,

With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,

Quartana there presides; a meagre fiend

Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force

Compress’d the slothful Naiad of the fens.130

From such a mixture sprung this fitful pest,

With feverish blasts subdues the sick’ning land:

Cold tremors come, and mighty love of rest,

Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and pains

That sting the burden’d brows, fatigue the loins,135

And rack the joints, and every torpid limb;

Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweats

O’erflow; a short relief from former ills.

Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine;

The vigour sinks, the habit melts away;140

The chearful, pure and animated bloom

Dies from the face, with squalid atrophy

Devour’d, in sallow melancholy clad.

And oft the sorceress, in her sated wrath,

Resigns them to the furies of her train;145

The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend

Ting’d with her own accumulated gall.

In quest of sites, avoid the mournful plainWhere osiers thrive, and trees that love the lake;Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:150Nor for the wealth that all the Indies rollFix near the marshy margin of the main.For from the humid soil, and watry reign,Eternal vapours rise; the spungy airFor ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight155Of waters, pours a sounding deluge down.Skies such as these let every mortal shunWho dreads the dropsy, palsy, or the gout,Tertian, corrosive scurvy, or moist catarrh;Or any other injury that grows160From raw-spun fibres idle and unstrung,Skin ill-perspiring, and the purple floodIn languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

In quest of sites, avoid the mournful plain

Where osiers thrive, and trees that love the lake;

Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:150

Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll

Fix near the marshy margin of the main.

For from the humid soil, and watry reign,

Eternal vapours rise; the spungy air

For ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight155

Of waters, pours a sounding deluge down.

Skies such as these let every mortal shun

Who dreads the dropsy, palsy, or the gout,

Tertian, corrosive scurvy, or moist catarrh;

Or any other injury that grows160

From raw-spun fibres idle and unstrung,

Skin ill-perspiring, and the purple flood

In languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

Yet not alone from humid skies we pine;For air may be too dry. The subtle heaven,165That winnows into dust the blasted downs,Bare and extended wide without a stream,Too fast imbibes th’ attenuated lymphWhich, by the surface, from the blood exhales.The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essay170Their flexible vibrations; or inflam’d,Their tender ever-moving structure thaws.Spoil’d of its limpid vehicle, the bloodA mass of lees remains, a drossy tideThat slow as Lethe wanders thro’ the veins,175Unactive in the services of life,Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro’The secret mazy channels of the brain.The melancholic fiend, (that worst despairOf physic) hence the rust-complexion’d man180Pursues, whose blood is dry, whose fibres gainToo stretch’d a tone: And hence in climes adustSo sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves,And burning fevers glow with double rage.

Yet not alone from humid skies we pine;

For air may be too dry. The subtle heaven,165

That winnows into dust the blasted downs,

Bare and extended wide without a stream,

Too fast imbibes th’ attenuated lymph

Which, by the surface, from the blood exhales.

The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essay170

Their flexible vibrations; or inflam’d,

Their tender ever-moving structure thaws.

Spoil’d of its limpid vehicle, the blood

A mass of lees remains, a drossy tide

That slow as Lethe wanders thro’ the veins,175

Unactive in the services of life,

Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro’

The secret mazy channels of the brain.

The melancholic fiend, (that worst despair

Of physic) hence the rust-complexion’d man180

Pursues, whose blood is dry, whose fibres gain

Too stretch’d a tone: And hence in climes adust

So sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves,

And burning fevers glow with double rage.

Fly, if you can, these violent extremes185Of air; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry.But as the power of chusing is deny’dTo half mankind, a further task ensues;How best to mitigate these fell extreams,How breathe unhurt the withering element,190Or hazy atmosphere: Tho’ custom mouldsTo every clime the soft Promethean clay;And he who first the fogs of Essex breath’d(So kind is native air) may in the fensOf Essex from inveterate ills revive195At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.But if the raw and oozy heaven offend,Correct the soil, and dry the sources upOf watry exhalation; wide and deepConduct your trenches thro’ the spouting bog;200Solicitous, with all your winding arts,Betray th’ unwilling lake into the stream;And weed the forest, and invoke the windsTo break the toils where strangled vapours lie;Or thro’ the thickets send the crackling flames.205Mean time, at home with chearful fires dispelThe humid air: And let your table smokeWith solid roast or bak’d; or what the herdsOf tamer breed supply; or what the wildsYield to the toilsom pleasures of the chase.210Generous your wine, the boast of rip’ning years,But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,Vapid and sunk from yesterday’s debauch,Shrinks from the cold embrace of watry heavens.But neither these, nor all Apollo’s arts,215Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky,Unless with exercise and manly toilYou brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.The fat’ning clime let all the sons of easeAvoid; if indolence would wish to live.220Go, yawn and loiter out the long slow yearIn fairer skies. If droughty regions parchThe skin and lungs, and bake the thick’ning blood;Deep in the waving forest chuse your seat,Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;225And wake the fountains from their secret beds,And into lakes dilate the running stream.Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,The moist relaxing vegetable storePrevail in each repast: Your food supplied230By bleeding life, be gently wasted down,By soft decoction and a mellowing heat,To liquid balm; or, if the solid massYou chuse, tormented in the boiling wave;That thro’ the thirsty channels of the blood235A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow.The fragrant dairy from its cool recessIts nectar acid or benign will pourTo drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowlOf keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve.240For with the viscous blood the simple streamWill hardly mingle; and fermented cupsOft dissipate more moisture than they give.Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rollsHis horrors o’er the world, thou may’st indulge245In feasts more genial, and impatient broachThe mellow cask. Then too the scourging airProvokes to keener toils than sultry droughtsAllow. But rarely we such skies blaspheme.Steep’d in continual rains, or with raw fogs250Bedew’d, our seasons droop; incumbent stillA ponderous heaven o’erwhelms the sinking soul.Lab’ring with storms in heapy mountains riseTh’ imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shadesHad left the dungeon of eternal night,255Till black with thunder all the south descends.Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulgeOur melting clime; except the baleful eastWithers the tender spring, and sourly checksThe fancy of the year. Our fathers talk260Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene.Good heaven! for what unexpiated crimesThis dismal change! The brooding elementsDo they, your powerful ministers of wrath,Prepare some fierce exterminating plague?265Or is it fix’d in the Decrees aboveThat lofty Albion melt into the main?Indulgent nature! O dissolve this gloom!Bind in eternal adamant the windsThat drown or wither: Give the genial west270To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly north:And may once more the circling seasons ruleThe year; not mix in every monstrous day.

Fly, if you can, these violent extremes185

Of air; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry.

But as the power of chusing is deny’d

To half mankind, a further task ensues;

How best to mitigate these fell extreams,

How breathe unhurt the withering element,190

Or hazy atmosphere: Tho’ custom moulds

To every clime the soft Promethean clay;

And he who first the fogs of Essex breath’d

(So kind is native air) may in the fens

Of Essex from inveterate ills revive195

At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.

But if the raw and oozy heaven offend,

Correct the soil, and dry the sources up

Of watry exhalation; wide and deep

Conduct your trenches thro’ the spouting bog;200

Solicitous, with all your winding arts,

Betray th’ unwilling lake into the stream;

And weed the forest, and invoke the winds

To break the toils where strangled vapours lie;

Or thro’ the thickets send the crackling flames.205

Mean time, at home with chearful fires dispel

The humid air: And let your table smoke

With solid roast or bak’d; or what the herds

Of tamer breed supply; or what the wilds

Yield to the toilsom pleasures of the chase.210

Generous your wine, the boast of rip’ning years,

But frugal be your cups; the languid frame,

Vapid and sunk from yesterday’s debauch,

Shrinks from the cold embrace of watry heavens.

But neither these, nor all Apollo’s arts,215

Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky,

Unless with exercise and manly toil

You brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood.

The fat’ning clime let all the sons of ease

Avoid; if indolence would wish to live.220

Go, yawn and loiter out the long slow year

In fairer skies. If droughty regions parch

The skin and lungs, and bake the thick’ning blood;

Deep in the waving forest chuse your seat,

Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;225

And wake the fountains from their secret beds,

And into lakes dilate the running stream.

Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,

The moist relaxing vegetable store

Prevail in each repast: Your food supplied230

By bleeding life, be gently wasted down,

By soft decoction and a mellowing heat,

To liquid balm; or, if the solid mass

You chuse, tormented in the boiling wave;

That thro’ the thirsty channels of the blood235

A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow.

The fragrant dairy from its cool recess

Its nectar acid or benign will pour

To drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowl

Of keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve.240

For with the viscous blood the simple stream

Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups

Oft dissipate more moisture than they give.

Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rolls

His horrors o’er the world, thou may’st indulge245

In feasts 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 fogs250

Bedew’d, our seasons droop; incumbent still

A ponderous heaven o’erwhelms the sinking soul.

Lab’ring with storms in heapy mountains rise

Th’ imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades

Had left the dungeon of eternal night,255

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 talk260

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?265

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 west270

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.

Mean time, the moist malignity to shunOf burthen’d skies; mark where the dry champain275Swells into chearful hills; where MarjoramAnd Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;And where the Cynorrhodon2with the roseFor fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soilMost fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.280There bid thy roofs high on the basking steepAscend, 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 behind285O’erhung, defends you from the blust’ring north,And bleak affliction of the peevish east.O! when the growling winds contend, and allThe sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,To sink in warm repose, and hear the din290Howl o’er the steady battlements, delightsAbove the luxury of vulgar sleep.The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strainOf waters rushing o’er the slippery rocks,Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.295To please the fancy is no trifling good,Where health is studied; for whatever movesThe mind with calm delight, promotes the justAnd natural movements of th’ harmonious frame.Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes300The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,From vale to mountain, with incessant changeOf purest element, refreshing stillYour airy seat, and uninfected Gods.Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds305High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sidesTh’ etherial deep with endless billows laves.His purer mansion nor contagious yearsShall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

Mean time, the moist malignity to shun

Of burthen’d skies; mark where the dry champain275

Swells into chearful hills; where Marjoram

And Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;

And where the Cynorrhodon2with the rose

For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil

Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.280

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 behind285

O’erhung, defends you from the blust’ring 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 din290

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.295

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 th’ harmonious frame.

Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes300

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 builds305

High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides

Th’ etherial deep with endless billows laves.

His purer mansion nor contagious years

Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain,310Involve my hill. And wheresoe’er you build;Whether on sun-burnt Epsom, or the plainsWash’d by the silent Lee; in Chelsea low,Or high Blackheath with wintry winds assail’d;Dry be your house: but airy more than warm.315Else every breath of ruder wind will strikeYour tender body thro’ with rapid pains;Fierce coughs will teize you, hoarseness bind your voice,Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows.These to defy, and all the fates that dwell320In cloister’d air tainted with steaming life,Let lofty ceilings grace your ample rooms;And still at azure noontide may your domeAt every window drink the liquid sky.

But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain,310

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 than warm.315

Else every breath of ruder wind will strike

Your tender body thro’ with rapid pains;

Fierce coughs will teize you, hoarseness bind your voice,

Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows.

These to defy, and all the fates that dwell320

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,325And theatres open to the south, commend?Here, where the morning’s misty breath infestsMore than the torrid noon? How sickly grow,How pale, the plants in those ill-fated valesThat, circled round with the gigantic heap330Of mountains, never felt, nor never hopeTo feel, the genial vigor of the sun!While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflamesThe verdant spring; in virgin beauty blowsThe tender lily, languishingly sweet;335O’er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,And autumn ripens in the summer’s ray.Nor less the warmer living tribes demandThe fost’ring sun: whose energy divineDwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat340Glows thro’ the mass of grosser elements,And kindles into life the pond’rous spheres.Chear’d by thy kind invigorating warmth,We court thy beams, great majesty of day!If not the soul, the regent of this world,345First born of heaven, and only less than God!

Need we the sunny situation here,325

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 heap330

Of mountains, never felt, nor never hope

To feel, the genial vigor of the sun!

While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames

The verdant spring; in virgin beauty blows

The tender lily, languishingly sweet;335

O’er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,

And autumn ripens in the summer’s ray.

Nor less the warmer living tribes demand

The fost’ring sun: whose energy divine

Dwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat340

Glows thro’ the mass of grosser elements,

And kindles into life the pond’rous spheres.

Chear’d by thy kind invigorating warmth,

We court thy beams, great majesty of day!

If not the soul, the regent of this world,345

First born of heaven, and only less than God!

Back to Index Next