Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/62

54 Weak withering age no rigid law forbids, With frugal nectar, smooth and slow with balm, The sapless habit daily to bedew, And give the hesitating wheels of life Gliblier to play. But youth has better joys; And is it wise when youth with pleasure flows, To squander the reliefs of age and pain?
 * What dext'rous thousands just within the goal

Of wild debauch direct their nightly course! Perhaps no sickly qualms bedim their days, No morning admonitions shock the head. But ah! what woes remain! Life rolls apace, And that incurable disease old age, In youthful bodies more severely felt, More sternly active, shakes their blasted prime; Except kind nature by some hasty blow Rh