Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/46

38 From the crude ore can spin the ductile gold? Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund Of plagues: but more immedicable ills Attend the lean extreme. For physic knows How to disburden the too tumid veins, Even how to ripen the half-labour'd blood; But to unlock the elemental tubes, Collaps'd and shrunk with long inanity, And with balsamic nutriment repair The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid Old age grow green, and wear a second spring; Or the tall ash, long ravish'd from the foil, Thro' wither'd veins imbibe the vernal dew. When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain: For the keen appetite will feast beyond What nature well can bear; and one extreme Ne'er without danger meets its own reverse. Rh