The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world
Expands her sable wings. Great Nature droops
Through all her works. Now happy he whose toil
Has o'er his languid powerless limbs diffus'd
A pleasing lassitude: he not in vain
Invokes the gentle Deity of dreams.
His powers the most voluptuously dissolve

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In soft repose: on him the balmy dews

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Of Sleep with double nutriment descend.

But would you sweetly waste the blank of night
In deep oblivion; or on Fancy's wings
Visit the paradise of happy Dreams,
And waken cheerful as the lively morn;
Oppress not Nature sinking down to rest
With feasts too late, too solid, or too full:
But be the first concoction half-matur'd

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O'erwhelm; or bury struggling under ground.
Not all a monarch's luxury the woes

406

Can counterpoise of that most wre ched nian,
Whose nights are shaken with the frantic fits
Of wild Orestes; whose delirious brain,

Stung by the Furies, works with poison'd thought:

While pale and monstrous painting shocks the soul;

And mangled consciousness bemoans itself

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For ever torn; and chaos floating round.

What dreams presage, what dangers these or those

Portend to sanity, though prudent seers

415

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.

420

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 nought avail What season you to drowsy Morpheus give Of th' ever-varying circle of the day;

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425

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, th' effusion of the skin,
Slowly impair'd, the languid maladies

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Creep on, and through the sinking functions steal.

So, 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 heav'ns. 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 subdu'd, 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 lingringly return to life,
Blunt every sense and pow'rless every limb.

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Ye prone to sleep, (whom sleeping most annoys)

On the hard mattress or elastic couch

455

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.

460

He, without riot, in the balmy feast
Of life, the wants of nature has supply'd,
Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul.

But pliant nature more or less demands,

As custom forms her; and all sudden change.

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She hates of habit, even 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,

470

Slow as the stealing progress of the year.

Observe the circling year. How unperceiv'd
Her seasons change! Behold! by slow degrees,
Stern Winter tam'd into a ruder Spring;
The ripen'd Spring a milder Summer glows;
Departing Summer sheds Pomona's store;
And aged Autumn brews the winter-storm.

475

Slow as they come, these changes come not void
Of mortal shocks: the cold and torrid reigns,
The two great periods of th' important year,
Are in their first approaches seldom safe:
Funeral Autumn all the sickly dread,

480

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, though i 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 Dæmon of the East:
But you perhaps refuse the tedious song.

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495

Besides, whatever plagues, in heat, or cold,

Or drought, or moisture, dwell, they hurt not you

Skill'd to corred the vices of the sky,

500

And taught already how to each extreme

To bend your life. But should the public bane

Infect you; or some tresspass of your own,

Or flaw of nature, hint mortality:

Soon as a not unpleasing horror glides

505

Along the spine, thro' 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.

510

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'erpow'rs your life. For want of timely care,
Millions have died of medicable wounds,

516

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,
Th' imprisoned plagues; a secret venom oft
Corrupts the air, the water, and the land.

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525

What living deaths has sad Byzantium seen!
How oft has Cairo, with a mother's woe,

Wept o'er her slaughter'd sons and lonely streets!

Even Albion, girt with less malignant skies,

530

Albion the poison of the Gods has drunk,
And felt the sting of monsters all

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,

536

And daily horrors; till the Fates were drunk

With kindred blood by kindred hands profus'd;
Another plague of more gigantic arm

Arose, a monster never known before,

540

Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.

This rapid Fury, not like other pests,
Pursu'd 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.

545

First through the shoulders, or whatever part Was seiz'd 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.

550

Gush'd out in smoky sweats; but nought assuag'd
The torrid heat within, nor aught reliev'd
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,
Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain,

555

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 lab'rings heav'd.
At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head,

561

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
Wrap 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 provok'd,
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

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570

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 (tho' little hope remaind'd)
With full effusion of perpetual sweats

576

To drive the venom out. And here the fates

Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain.

For, who surviv'd the sun's diurnal race,

580

Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem'd:

Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third.

Of many thousands few untainted 'scap'd;
Of those infected fewer 'scap'd alive:
Of those who liv'd, some felt a second blow;
And whom the second spar'd, a third destroy'd.
Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun
The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land
Th' infected city pour'd her hurrying swarms:
Rous'd by the flames that fir'd her seats around,
Th' infected country rush'd into the town.
Some, sad at home, and in the desert some,
Abjur'd the fatal commerce of mankind:

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591

In vain: where'er they fled, the Fates pursued.

Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main,

To seek protection in far-distant skies;

596

But none they found. It seem'd the general air,

From pole to pole, from Atlas to the East,

Was then at enmity with English blood.

For, but the race of England, all were safe

In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste

600

The foreign blood which England then contain❜d.
Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven
Involv'd them still; and every breeze was bane.
Where find relief? The salutary art