Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/21

B. I. Of watry exhalation; wide and deep Conduct your trenches thro' the spouting bog; 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. 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. 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, Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky, Rh