Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/95

B. III. The body, fresh and vigorous from repose, Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils Of wakeful day, exhausted and unstrung, Weakly resists the nights unwholsome breath. The grand discharge, th' effusion of the skin, Slowly impair'd, the languid maladies Creep on, and thro' the sickning functions steal So, when the chilling East invades the spring, The delicate Narcissus pines away In hectic languor; and a slow disease Taints all the family of flowers, condemn'd To cruel heav'ns. But why, already prone To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane? O shame! O pity! nipt with pale Quadrille, And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies!

By toil subdu'd, the Warrior and the Hind Sleep fast and deep; their active functions soon Rh