Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/24

16 Lab'ring with storms in heapy mountains rise Th' imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades Had left the dungeon of eternal night, 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 talk 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? 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 west Rh