"THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: A POEM‪"‬

"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 aught30
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 thee35
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!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.”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 trace50
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,55
And quel the dreaded Python of the Nile.
O Thou belov’d by all the graceful arts,...FROM THE BOOK..."