Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/35

B. II. That ripening nature rolls; as in the stream Its crumbling banks; but what the vital force Of plastic fluids hourly batters down, That very force, those plastic particles Rebuild: So mutable the state of man. For this the watchful appetite was giv'n, Daily with fresh materials to repair This unavoidable expence of life, This necessary waste of flesh and blood. Hence the concoctive powers, with various art, Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle; The chyle to blood; the foamy purple tide To liquors, which thro' finer arteries To different parts their winding course pursue; To try new changes, and new forms put on, Or for the public, or some private use. Rh