To vapid life. Here with a mother's smile 340 345 While the cool Palm, the Plantain, and the grove 350 The torrid hell that beams upon their heads. Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;: Now let me wander through your gelid reign, By mortal else untrod. I hear the din 355 Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song. Here from the desart down the rumbling steep First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Po In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves 361 A mighty flood to water half the East; The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn. 364 What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round; Stretch their extra vagant arms athwart the gloom. 371 375 This trembling ground. The task remains to sing. Your gifts (so Pæan, so the powers of health Command) to praise your crystal element: 380 The chief ingredient in heaven's various works; The vehicle, the source of nutriment O comfortable streams! with eager lips None warmer sought the sires of human kind. 385 390 395 Long centuries they liv'd; their only fate was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death. Oh! could those worthies from the world of Gods Return to visit their degenerate sons, 400 How would they scorn the joys of modern time With all our art and toil improv'd to pain ! Too happy they! But wealth brought luxury, Learn temperance, friends; and hear without disdain The choice of water. Thus the Coan * sage 406 Opin'd and thus the learn'd of every school. What least of foreign principles partakes Is best the lightest then; what bears the touch 410 The most insipid; the most void of smell. And summer's heat secure. The crystal stream, 415 Hurl'd down the pebbly channel, wholesome yields And mellow draughts; except when winter thaws, 4.20 425 Has from profane embraces disengag'd Nothing like simple element dilutes The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow. 430 435 Retard concoction, and preserve unthaw'd Th' embodied mass. You see what countless years Embalm'din fiery quintescence of wine, 441 The puny wonders of the reptile world, The tender rudiments of life, the slim Unravellings of minute anatomy, Maintain their texture, and unchang'd remain. 445 We curse not wine: the vile excess we blame ; More fruitful than th' accumulated board, Of pain and misery. For the subtle draught Faster and surer, swells the vital tide; And with more active poison, than the floods 450 Of grosser crudity convey, pervades 455 Mean time, I would not always dread the bowl, Nor every trespass shun. The feverish strife, 460 Rous'd by the rare debauch, subdues, expells, The loitering crudities that burden life; And, like a torrent full and rapid, clears Th' obstructed tubes. Besides, this restless world Is full of chances, which by habit's power 465 To learn to bear, is easier than to shun. * See Book iy. Ah! when ambition, meagre love of gold, 470 And Hercules grew strong. But when you smooth 476 The least your bane; and only with your friends. By friends alone, and men of generous minds. Oh! seldom may the fated hours return Of drinking deep! I would not daily taste, Except when life declines, even sober cups. 481 Weak withering age no rigid law forbids, With frugal nectar, smooth and slow with balm, 486 And give the hesitating wheels of life Gliblier to play. But youth has better joys: And is it wise, when youth with pleasure flows, To squander the reliefs of age and pain? 490 What dextrous thousands just within the goal 495 In youthful bodies more severely felt, Protracted; spurs to its last stage tir'd life, And sows the temples with untimely snow. 505 The heart's increasing force; and, day by day, C Acquiring (from their elemental veins, 510 515 Its various functions vigorously are plied By nature fix'd, whence life must downward tend. For still the beating tide consolidates 521 The stubborn vessels, more reluctant still To the weak throbs of th' ill-supported heart. This lauguishing, these strength'ning by degrees 525 Through tedious channels the congealing flood This is the period few attain; the death Of nature; thus (so heav'n ordain'd it) life 530 Destroys itself; and could these laws have chang'd Nestor might now the fates of Troy relate; And Homer live immortal as his song. What does not fade? The tower that long had stood The crush of thunder and the warring winds, 535 Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time, Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base. 540 * In the human body, as well as in those of other animals, the larger blood vessels are composed of smaller ones; which, by the violent motion and pressure of the fluids in the large vessels, lose their cavities by degrees, and degenarate into impervious chords or fibres. In proportion as these small vessels become solid, the larger must of course grow less extensile, more rigid, and make a stronger resistance to the action of the heart, and force of the blood. From this gradual condensation of the smaller vessels, and consequeni rigidity of the larger one, the progress of the human body, from infancy to old age, is accounted for. |