Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/98

90 The two great periods of th' important year, Are in their first approaches seldom safe: Funereal autumn all the sickly dread, And the black fates deform the lovely spring. He well advis'd, who taught our wiser sires Early to borrow Muscovy's warm spoils, Ere the first frost has touch'd the tender blade; And late resign them, tho' the wanton spring Should deck her charms with all her sister's rays. For while the effluence of the skin maintains Its native measure, the pleuritic Spring Glides harmless by; and Autumn, sick to death With fallow Quartans, no contagion breathes.


 * I in prophetic numbers could unfold

The omens of the year: what seasons teem With what diseases; what the humid South Prepares, and what the Dæmon of the East: Rh