Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/103

B. III. 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 Had mix'd the blood; and rank with fetid steams: As if the pent-up humors by delay Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign. Here lay their hopes (tho' little hope remain'd) With full effusion of perpetual sweats To drive the venom out. And here the fates Rh