Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/45

B. II.
 * So heav'n has form'd us to the general taste

Of all its gifts; so custom has improv'd This bent of nature; that few simple foods, Of all that earth, or air, or ocean yield, But by excess offend. Beyond the sense Of light refection, at the genial board Indulge not often; nor protract the feast To dull satiety; till soft and slow A drowzy death creeps on, th' expansive soul Oppress'd, and smother'd the celestial fire. The stomach, urg'd beyond its active tone, Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues The softest food: unfinish'd and deprav'd, The chyle, in all its future wand'rings, owns Its turbid fountain; not by purer streams So to be clear'd, but foulness will remain. To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt Th' unripen'd grape? Or what mechanic skill Rh