The art of preserving health: a poem.

BOOK I. AIR.

DAUGHTER of Paeon, queen of every joy, HYGEIA whose indulgent smile sustains The various race luxuriant nature pours, And on th' immortal essences bestows Immortal Youth; auspicious, O descend!Line 5 Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year, Whether thou wanton'st on the western gale, Or shak'st the rigid pinions of the north, Diffusest life and vigour thro' the tracts, Of air, thro' earth, and ocean's deep domain.Line 10

When thro' the blue serenity of heav'n Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host Of pain and sickness, squalid and deform'd, Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom, Where in deep Erebus involv'd the fiendsLine 15 Grow more profane. Whatever shapes of death Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe, Swarm thro' the shuddering air: whatever plagues Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings Rise from the putrid wat'ry element,Line 20 The damp waste forest, motionless and rank, That smothers earth, and all the breathless winds, Or the vi•••• carnage of th' inhuman field; Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south; Whatever ills th' extremes or sudden changeLine 25 Of cold and hot, or moist and dry produce; They fly thy pure effulgence: they, and all The secret poisons of avenging heaven, And all the pale tribes halting in the train Of vice and heedless pleasure: or if aughtLine 30 The comet's glare amid the burning sky, Mournful eclipse, or planets ill combin'd, Portend disastrous to the vital world; Thy salutary power averts their rage, Averts the general bane: and but for theeLine 35 Nature would sicken, nature soon would die.

WITHOUT thy chearful, active energy, No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings, No more the maids of Helicon delight. Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly gay!Line 40 Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow, And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws: " How best the fickle fabric to support " Of mortal man; in healthful body how " A healthful mind the longest to maintain."Line 45 'Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to chuse The best, and those of most extensive use; Harder in clear and animated song, Dry philosophic precepts to convey. Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I traceLine 50 Of nature, and with daring steps proceed Thro' paths the muses never trod before.

NOR should I wander doubtful of my way, Had I the lights of that sagacious mind Which taught to check the pestilential fire,Line 55 And quell the dreaded Python of the Nile. O Thou belov'd by all the graceful arts, Thou long the fav'rite of the healing powers, Indulge, O MEAD! a well-design'd essay, Howe'er imperfect, and permit that ILine 60 My little knowledge with my country share, Till you the rich As••lepian stores unlock, And with new graces dignify the theme.

YE who amid this feverish world would wear A body free of pain, of cares a mind;Line 65 Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air; Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke And volatile corruption, from the dead, The dying, sick'ning, and the living world Exhal'd, to sully heaven's transparent domeLine 70 With dim mortality. It is not air That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine, Sated with exhalations rank and f••ll, The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw Of nature; when from shape and texture sheLine 75 Relapses into fighting elements: It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass Of all obscene, corrupt, offensive things. Much moisture hurts; but here a sordid bath With oily rancour fraught, relaxes moreLine 80 The solid frame than simple moisture can. Besides, immur'd in many a sullen bay That never felt the freshness of the breeze, This slumbring deep remains, and ranker grows With sickly rest: and (tho' the lungs abhorLine 85 To drink the dun fuliginous abyss) Did not the acid vigour of the mine, Roll'd from so many thundring chimneys, tame The putrid salts that overswarm the sky; This caustick venom would perhaps corrodeLine 90 Those tender cells that draw the vital air,

In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew'd; Or by the drunken, venous tubes, that yawn In countless pores o'er all the pervious skin, Imbib'd, would poison the balsamic blood,Line 95 And rouse the heart to every fever's rage. While yet you breathe, away! the rural wilds Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales, The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze That fans the ever undulating sky;Line 100 A kindly sky! whose fost'ring power regales Man, beast, and all the vegetable reign. Find then some woodland scene, where nature smiles Benign, where all her honest children thrive. To us there wants not many a happy seat;Line 105 Look round the smiling land, such numbers rise We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice. See where enthron'd in adamantine state, Proud of her bards, imperial Windsor sits; There chuse thy seat, in some aspiring grove,Line 110 Fast by the slowly winding Thames; or where Broader she laves fair Richmond's green retreats, (Richmond that sees an hundred villas rise, Rural or gay) O! from the summer's rage, O! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hidesLine 115 Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy town Attract thee still to toil for power or gold, Sweetly thou may'st thy vacant hours possess In Hampstead, courted by the western wind; Line 120

Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;Line 120 O•• lose the world amid the sylvan wilds Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil'd. Green rise the Kentish Hills in chearful air▪ But on the marshy plains that Essex spreads Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.Line 125 For on a rustic throne of dewy turf, With baneful fogs her aching temples bound, Quartana there presides; a meagre fiend, Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force Compress'd the slothful Naiad of the fens.Line 130 From such a mixture sprung this fitful pest, With feverish blasts subdues the sick'ning land: Cold Tremors come, and mighty love of rest, Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and pains, That sting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins,Line 135 And rack the joints, and every torpid limb; Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweats O'erflow; a short relief from former ills. Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine; The vigour sinks, the habit melts away;Line 140 The chearful, pure and animated bloom, Dies from the face, with squalid atrophy Devour'd, in sallow melancholy clad. And oft the sorceress, in her sated wrath, Resigns them to the furies of her train;Line 145 The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend Ting'd with her own accumulated gall.

IN quest of sites, avoid the mournful plain Where osiers thrive, and trees that love the lake▪ Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:Line 150 Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll, Fix near the marshy margin of the main. For from the humid soil, and wat'ry reign, Eternal vapours rise; the spungy air For ever weeps; or, turgid with the weightLine 155 Of waters, pours a sounding deluge down. Skies such as these let every mortal shun Who dreads the dropsy, palsy, or the gout, Tertian, corrosive scurvy, or most catarrh▪ Or any other injury that growsLine 160 From raw-spun fibres, idle and unstrung. Skin ill perspiring, and the purple flood In languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

YET not alone from humid skies we pine; For air may be too dry. The subtle heavenLine 165 That winnows into dust the blasted downs, Bare, and extended wide, without a stream, Too fast imbibes th' attenuated lymph, Which, by the surface, from the blood exhales. The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essayLine 170 Their flexible vibrations; or inflam'd, Their tender ever-moving structure thaws. Spoil'd of its limpid vehicle, the blood A mass of lees remains, a drossy tide Line 175

That slow as Lethe wanders thro' the veins,Line 175 Unactive in the services of life, Unfit to lead its pitchy current thro' The secret mazy channels of the brain. The melancholic fiend (that worst despair Of physic) hence the rust-complexion'd manLine 180 Pursues, whose blood is dry, whose fibres gain Too stretch'd a tone: and hence in climes adust So sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves, And burning fevers glow with double rage.

FLY, if you can, these violent extremesLine 185 Of air; the wholesome is nor moist nor dry. But as the power of chusing is deny'd To half mankind, a further task ensues; How best to mitigate these fell extreams, How breathe unhurt the withering element,Line 190 Or hazy atmosphere: tho' custom moulds To every clime the soft Promethean clay; And he who first the fogs of Essex breath'd (So kind is native air) may in the fens Of Essex from inveterate ills reviveLine 195 At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught: But if the raw and oozy heaven offend, Correct the soil, and dry the sources up Of wat'ry exhalation; wide and deep Conduct your Trenches thro' the spouting Bog;Line 200 Solicitous, with all your winding arts,

Betray th' unwilling lake into the stream; And weed the forest, and invoke the winds To break the toils where strangled vapours lie; Or thro' the thickets send the crackling flames.Line 205 Mean time, at home with chearful fires dispel The humid air: and let your table smoke With solid roast or bak'd; or what the herds Of tamer breed supply; or what the wilds Yield to the toilsome pleasures of the chace.Line 210 Generous your wine, the boast of rip'ning years, But frugal be your cups; the languid frame, Vapid and sunk from yesterday's debauch, Shrinks from the cold embrace of wat'ry heavens. But neither these, nor all Apollo's arts,Line 215 Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky, Unless with exercise and manly toil You brace your nerves, and spur the lagging blood. The fat'ning clime let all the sons of ease Avoid; if indolence would wish to live.Line 220 Go, yawn and loiter out the long slow year In fairer skies. If droughty regions parch The skin and lungs, and bake the thick'ning blood; Deep in the waving forest chuse your seat, Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;Line 225 And wake the fountains from their secret beds, And into lakes dilate the running stream. Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool, The moist relaxing vegetable store Line 230

Prevail in each repast: your food suppliedLine 230 By bleeding life, be gently wasted down, By soft decoction, and a mellowing heat, To liquid balm, or, if the solid mass You chuse, tormented in the boiling wave; That thro' the thirsty channels of the bloodLine 235 A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow. The fragrant dairy from its cool recess Its nectar acid or benign will pour To drown your thirst: or let the mantling bowl Of keen sherbet the sickle taste relieve.Line 240 For with the viscous blood the simple stream Will hardly mingle, and fermented cups Oft dissipate more moisture than they give. Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rolls His horrors o'er the world, thou mayst indulgeLine 245 In feasts more genial, and impatient broach The mellow cask. Then too the scourging air Provokes to keener toils than sultry droughts Allow. But rarely we such skies blaspheme. Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogsLine 250 Bedew'd, our seasons droop; incumbent still A ponderous heaven o'erwhelms the sinking soul. Lab'ring with storms in heapy mountains rise Th' imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades Had left the dungeon of eternal night,Line 255 Till black with thunder all the south descends. Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulge

Our melting clime, except the baleful east Withers the tender spring, and sourly checks The fancy of the year. Our fathers talkLine 260 Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene. Good heaven! for what unexpiated crimes This dismal change! The brooding elements Do they, your powerful ministers of wrath, Prepare some fierce exterminating plague?Line 265 Or is it fix'd in the decrees above That lofty Albion melt into the main? Indulgent nature! O dissolve this gloom! Bind in eternal adamant the winds That drown or wither: give the genial westLine 270 To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly north And may once more the circling seasons rule The year; not mix in every monstrous day.

MEAN time, the moist malignity to shun Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry champainLine 275 Swells into chearful hills; where Marjoram And Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air; And where the Cynorrhodon with the rose For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.Line 280 There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires. And let them see the winter morn arise,

The summer evening blushing in the west, While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behindLine 285 O'erhung, defends you from the blust'ring north, And bleak affliction of the peevish east. O! when the growling winds contend, and all The ••ounding forest fluctuates in the storm, To sink in warm repose, and hear the dinLine 290 Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights Above the luxury of vulgar sleep. The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks, Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.Line 295 To please the fancy is no trifling good, Where health is studied, for whatever moves The mind with calm delight, promotes the just And natural movements of th' harmonious frame. Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakesLine 300 The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill, From vale to mountain, with incessant change Of purest element, refreshing still Your airy seat, and uninfected goods. Chiefly for this I praise the man who buildsLine 305 High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides Th' etherial deep with endless billows laves. His purer mansion nor contagious years Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

BUT may no fogs, from lake, or fenny plain,Line 310 Involve my hill. And wheresoe'er you build, Whether on sun-burnt Epsom, or the plains Wash'd by the silent Lee; in Chelsea low, Or high Blackheath with wint'ry winds assail'd; Dry be your house: but airy more than warm.Line 315 Else every breath of ruder wind will strike Your tender body thro' with rapid pains; Fierce coughs will teize you, hoarseness bind your voice, Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows: These to defy, and all the fates that dwellLine 320 In cloister'd air, tainted with steaming life, Let lofty cielings grace your ample rooms; And still at azure noontide may your dome At every window drink the liquid sky.

NEED we the funny situation here,Line 325 And theatres open to the south, commend? Here, where the morning's misty breath infests More than the torrid noon? How sickly grow, How pale, the plants in those ill-fated vales That, circled round with the gigantic heapLine 330 Of mountains, never felt, nor never hope To feel the genial vigour of the sun! While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames The verdant spring; in virgin beauty blows The tender lily, languishingly sweet;Line 335

O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves, And autumn ripens in the summer's ray. Nor less the warmer living tribes demand The fost'ring sun: whose energy divine Dwells not in mortal fire, whose generous heatLine 240 Glows thro' the mass of grosser elements, And kindles into life the pond'rous spheres. Chear'd by thy kind invigorating warmth, We court thy beams, great majesty of day! If not the soul, the regent of this world,Line 345 First-born of heaven, and only less than God!

Notes

• Hygeia, the goddess of health, was, according to the genealogy of the Heathen Deities, the daughter of Esculapius; who, as well as Apollo, was distinguished by the name of Paeon.
• The wild rose, or that which grows upon the wild briar.