Portend to sanity; though prudent seers
Reveal'd of old, and men of deathless fame;
We would not to the superstitious mind
Suggest new throbs, new vanities of fear.
'Tis ours to teach you from the peaceful night
To banish omens and all restless woes.

In study some protract the silent hours,
Which others consecrate to mirth and wine;
And sleep till noon, and hardly live till night.
But surely this redeems not from the shades
One hour of life. Nor does it naught avail
What season you to drowsy Morpheus give
Of the ever-varying circle of the day;

Or whether, through the tedious winter gloom,
You tempt the midnight or the morning damps.
The body, fresh and vigorous from repose,
Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils
Of wakeful day exhausted and unstrung,
Weakly resists the night's unwholesome breath.
The grand discharge, the effusion of the skin,
Slowly impair'd, the languid maladies

Creep on, and through the sickening functions steal.
As, 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 heavens. 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 subdued, the warrior and the hind Sleep fast and deep: their active functions soon With generous streams the subtle tubes supply; And soon the tonic irritable nerves

Feel the fresh impulse, and awake the soul.
The sons of indolence with long repose
Grow torpid; and with slowest Lethe drunk,
Feebly and lingeringly return to life,

Blunt every sense and powerless every limb.
Ye, prone to sleep (whom sleeping most annoys)
On the hard mattress or elastic couch

Extend your limbs, and wean yourselves from sloth;
Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain
And springy nerves, the blandishments of down.
Nor envy, while the buried Bacchanal
Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams.

He, without riot, in the balmy feast
Of life, the wants of nature has supplied,
Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul.
But pliant Nature more or less demands,
As custom forms her; and all sudden change
She hates of habit, ev'n from bad to good.
If faults in life, or new emergencies

From habits urge you by long time confirm'd,
Slow may the change arrive, and stage by stage;
Slow as the shadow o'er the dial moves,
Slow as the stealing progress of the year.

Observe the circling Year. How unperceived
Her Seasons change! Behold! by slow degrees,
Stern Winter tamed into a ruder Spring;
The ripen'd Spring a milder Summer's glows;
Departing Summer sheds Pomona's store;
And aged Autumn brews the winter-storm.
Slow as they come, these changes come not void
Of mortal shocks: the cold and torrid reigns,
The two great periods of the 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 advised, 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, though 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 sallow 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 demon of the East :
But you perhaps refuse the tedious song.
Besides, whatever plagues in heat, or cold,
Or drought, or moisture dwell, they hurt not you,
Skill'd to correct the vices of the sky,

And taught already how to each extreme
To bend your life. But should the public bane
Infect you; or some trespass of your own,
Or flaw of nature, hint mortality:

Soon as a not unpleasing horror glides

Along the spine, through all your torpid limbs ;
When first the head throbs, or the stomach feels
A sickly load, a weary pain the loins;

Be Celsus call'd: the Fates come rushing on;
The rapid Fates admit of no delay.
While wilful you, and fatally secure,
Expect to-morrow's more auspicious sun,
The growing pest, whose infancy was weak
And easy vanquish'd, with triumphant sway
O'erpowers your life. For want of timely care,
Millions have died of medicable wounds.

Ah! in what perils is vain life engaged! What slight neglects, what trivial faults destroy The hardiest frame! of indolence, of toil, We die; of want, of superfluity:

The all-surrounding heaven, the vital air,
Is big with death. And, though the putrid South
Be shut; though no convulsive agony

Shake, from the deep foundations of the world,
The imprison'd plagues; a secret venom oft
Corrupts the air, the water, and the land.
What livid deaths has sad Byzantium seen!
How oft has Cairo, with a mother's woe,
Wept o'er her slaughter'd sons and lonely streets!
Ev'n Albion, girt with less malignant skies,
Albion the poison of the gods has drank,
And felt the sting of monsters all her own.
Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent

Their ancient rage, at Bosworth's purple field;
While, for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd,
And daily horrors; till the Fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred hands profused;
Another plague of more gigantic arm
Arose, a monster never known before,
Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.
This rapid Fury not, like other pests,
Pursued a gradual course, but in a day
Rush'd as a storm o'er half the astonish'd isle,
And strew'd with sudden carcases the land.

First through the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seized the first, a fervid vapour sprung:
With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within;
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.

Through all the yielding pores, the melted blood
Gush'd out in smoky sweats; but naught assuaged
The torrid heat within, nor aught relieved
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,
Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain,

They toss'd from side to side. In vain the stream
Ran full and clear, they burnt and thirsted still.
The restless arteries with rapid blood

Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly The breath was fetch'd, and with huge labourings heaved.

At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head,

A wild delirium came; their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harass'd with toil on toil, the sinking powers
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown: a ponderous sleep
Wrapt all the senses up: they slept and died.
In some a gentle horror crept at first

O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till by art provoked
The sweats o'erflow'd, but in a clammy tide :
Now free and copious, now restrain'd and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature

Had mix'd the blood; and rank with fetid steams : As if the pent-up humours by delay

Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.
Here lay their hopes (though little hope remain'd)
With full effusion of perpetual sweats

To drive the venom out. And here the Fates
Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain.
For who survived the sun's diurnal race,
Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem'd :
Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third.
Of many thousands few untainted 'scaped;