A ponderous heaven o'erwhelms the sinking soul. Labouring with storms in heapy mountains rise The' embattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades Had left the dungeon of eternal night,
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 talk 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? 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 West 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.
Meantime, the moist malignity to shun Of burden'd skies; mark where the dry champaign Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air; And where the cynorrhodon3 with the rose For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes. There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires. And let them see the winter morn arise,
3 The wild rose, or that which grows on the common briar.
The summer evening blushing in the west; While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind O'erhung, defends you from the blustering north, And bleak affliction of the peevish East. O! when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm; To sink in warm repose, and hear the din 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. 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 the' harmonious frame. Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes 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 gods,
Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides The' etherial deep with endless billows chafes: His purer mansion nor contagious years Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.
But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain, Involve my hill! And wheresoe'er you build; Whether on sunburnt Epsom, or the plains Wash'd by the silent Lea; in Chelsea low, Or high Blackheath with wintry winds assail'd; Dry be your house: but airy more than warm, breath of ruder wind will strike
Your tender body through with rapid pains; Fierce coughs will tease you, hoarseness bind your voice,
Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows. These to defy, and all the fates that dwell In cloister'd air tainted with steaming life, Let lofty ceilings grace your ample rooms; And still at azure noontide may your dome At every window drink the liquid sky.
Need we the sunny situation here,
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 heap Of mountains, never felt, nor ever 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;
O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves, And autumn ripens in the summer's ray. Nor less the warmer living tribes demand The fostering sun: whose energy divine Dwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat Glows through the mass of grosser elements, And kindles into life the ponderous spheres. Cheer'd by thy kind invigorating warmth, We court thy beams, great majesty of day! If not the soul, the regent of this world, Firstborn of heaven, and only less than God!
4 Popularly called a cold.
ENOUGH of air. A desert subject now, Rougher and wilder, rises to my sight. A barren waste, where not a garland grows To bind the Muse's brow; not even a proud Stupendous solitude frowns o'er the heath, To rouse a noble horror in the soul:
But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads Through endless labyrinths the devious feet. Farewell, etherial fields! the humbler arts Of life; the table and the homely gods Demand my song. Elysian gales, adieu! The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow, The generous stream that waters every part, And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys To every particle that moves or lives; This vital fluid, through unnumber'd tubes Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again Refunded; scourged for ever round and round; Enraged with heat and toil, at last forgets Its balmy nature; virulent and thin
grows; and now, but that a thousand gates Are open to its flight, it would destroy The parts it cherish'd and repair'd before. Besides, the flexible and tender tubes Melt in the mildest, most nectareous tide
That ripening nature rolls; as in the stream Its crumbling banks; but what the vital force Of plastic fluids hourly batters down, That very force those plastic particles Rebuild: so mutable the state of man. For this the watchful appetite was given, Daily with fresh materials to repair This unavoidable expense of life,
This necessary waste of flesh and blood. Hence the concoctive powers, with various art, Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle; The chyle to blood: the foamy purple tide To liquors, which through finer arteries To different parts their winding course pursue; To try new changes, and new forms put on, Or for the public, or some private use.
Nothing so foreign but the' athletic hind Can labour into blood. The hungry meal Alone he fears, or aliments too thin; By violent powers too easily subdued, Too soon expell'd. His daily labour thaws To friendly chyle the most rebellious mass That salt can harden, or the smoke of years; Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue, Nor that which Cestria' sends, tenacious paste Of solid milk. But ye of softer clay, Infirm and delicate! and ye who waste With pale and bloated sloth the tedious day! Avoid the stubborn aliment, avoid The full repast; and let sagacious age Grow wiser, lesson'd by the dropping teeth. Half subtilized to chyle, the liquid food Readiest obeys the' assimilating powers Chester; used for Cheshire by the poet.
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