Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/116

108 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 powers. Quite unemploy'd, against its own repose Its turns its fatal edge, and sharper pangs Than what the body knows embitter life. Chiefly where Solitude, sad nurse of care, To sickly musing gives the pensive mind. There madness enters; and the dim-ey'd Fiend, Rh