Читать книгу The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books - John Armstrong - Страница 8

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Daughter of Pæon, queen of every joy,

Hygeia^[1]; whose indulgent smile sustains The various race luxuriant nature pours, And on th' immortal essences bestows 5Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend! Thou, chearful guardian of the rolling year, Whether thou wanton'st on the western gale,

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Or shak'st the rigid pinions of the north,

Diffusest life and vigour thro' the tracts

10Of air, thro' earth, and ocean's deep domain.

When thro' the blue serenity of heav'n

Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host

Of pain and sickness, squallid and deform'd,

Confounded sink into the loathsom gloom,

15Where in deep Erebus involv'd the fiends

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

20Rise from the putrid watry element,

The damp waste forest, motionless and rank,

That smothers earth and all the breathless winds.

Or the vile carnage of th' inhuman field;

Whatever baneful breathes the rotten south;

25Whatever ills th' extremes or sudden change

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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

30Of vice and heedless pleasure: or if aught

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,

35Averts the general bane: and but for thee

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.

40Come then with me, O Goddess heavenly-gay!

Begin the song; and let it sweetly flow,

And let it wisely teach thy wholesom laws:

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"How best the fickle fabric to support

"Of mortal man; in healthful body how

45"A healthful mind the longest to maintain."

'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.

50Yet with thy aid the secret wilds I trace

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

55Which taught to check the pestilential fire,

And quel 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,

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60Howe'er imperfect: and permit that I

My little knowledge with my country share,

Till you the rich Asclepian stores unlock,

And with new graces dignify the theme.

YE who amid this feverish world would wear

65A body free of pain, of cares a mind;

Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;

Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke

And volatile corruption, from the dead,

The dying, sickning, and the living world

70Exhal'd, to fully heaven's transparent dome

With dim mortality. It is not air

That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,

Sated with exhalations rank and fell,

The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw

75Of nature; when from shape and texture she

Relapses into fighting elements:

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It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass

Of all obscene, corrupt, offensive things.

Much moisture hurts; but here a sordid bath,

80With oily rancor fraught, relaxes more

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

85With sickly rest: and (tho' the lungs abhor

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;

90This caustick venom would perhaps corrode

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,

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95Imbib'd, would poison the balsamic blood,

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 dreams, and each ambrosial breeze

100That fans the ever undulating sky;

A kindly sky! whose soft'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.

105To us there wants not many a happy feat;

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;

110There chuse thy seat, in some aspiring grove

Fail by the slowly-winding Thames; or where

Broader she laves fair Richmond's green retreats,

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(Richmond that sees an hundred villas rise

Rural or gay.) O! from the summer's rage

115O! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides

Umbrageous Ham! But if the busy town

Attract thee still to toil for power or gold,

Sweetly thou mayst thy vacant hours possess

In Hampstead, courted by the weftern wind;

120Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;

Or 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

125Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.

For on a rustic throne of dewy turf,

With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,

Quartana there presides; meagre fiend

Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force

130Compress'd the slothful Naiad of the fens.

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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

135That sting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins,

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;

140The vigour sinks, the habit melts away;

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 fated wrath,

145Resigns them to the furies of her train;

The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend

Ting'd with her own accumulated gall.

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In quest of sites, avoid the mournful plain

Where osiers thrive, and trees that love the lake;

150Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:

Nor for the wealth that all the Indies roll

Fix near the marshy margin of the main.

For from the humid soil, and watry reign,

Eternal vapours rise; the spungy air

155For ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight

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 moist catarrh;

160Or any other injury that grows

From raw-spun fibres idle and unstrung,

Skin ill-perspiring, and the purple flood

In languid eddies loitering into phlegm.

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Yet not alone from humid skies we pine;

165For air may be too dry. The subtle heaven,

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.

170The lungs grow rigid, and with toil essay

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

175That flow as Lethe wanders thro' the veins,

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

180Of physic) hence the rust-complexion'd man

Pursues, whose blood is dry, whose fibres gain

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Too stretch'd a tone: And hence in climes adust

So sudden tumults seize the trembling nerves,

And burning fevers glow with double rage.

185Fly, if you can, these violent extremes

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,

190How breathe unhurt the withering element,

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

195Of Essex from inveterate ills revive

At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.

But if the raw and oozy heaven offend,

Correct the soil, and dry the sources up

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Of watry exhalation; wide and deep

200Conduct your trenches thro' the spouting bog;

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;

205Or thro' the thickets send the crackling flames.

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

210Yield to the toilsom pleasures of the chase.

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 watry heavens.

215But neither these, nor all Apollo's arts,

Disarm the dangers of the dropping sky,

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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

220Avoid; if indolence would wish to live.

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,

225Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;

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

230Prevail in each repast: Your food supplied

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;

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235That thro' the thirsty channels of the blood

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

240Of keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve.

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

245His horrors o'er the world, thou may'st indulge

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.

250Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogs

Bedew'd, our seasons droop; incumbent still

A ponderous heaven o'erwhelms the sinking soul.

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Lab'ring with storms in heapy mountains rise

Th' imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades

255Had 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

260The 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,

265Prepare 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

270That drown or wither: Give the genial west

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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

275Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry champain

Swells into chearful hills; where Marjoram

And Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;

And where the^[2] Cynorrhodon with the rose For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil 280Most 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, The summer evening blushing in the west; 285While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind O'erhung, defends you from the blust'ring north,

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And bleak affliction of the peevish east.

O! when the growling winds contend, and all

The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,

290To 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,

295Will 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 th' harmonious frame,

300Besides, 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.

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305Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds

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.

310But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain,

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 wintry winds assail'd;

315Dry be your house: but airy more than warm.

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.

320These to defy, and all the fates that dwell

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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.

325Need 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

330That, circled round with the gigantic heap

Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope

To feel, the genial vigor of the sun!

While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames

The verdant spring; in virgin beauty blows

335The tender lily, languishingly sweet;

O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,

And autumn ripens in the summer's ray.

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Nor less the warmer living tribes demand

The fost'ring fun: whose energy divine

340Dwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat

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!

345If not the soul, the regent of this world,

First born of heaven, and only less than God!

1 ↑ 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 Pæon.

2 ↑ The wild rose, or that which grows upon the wild briar.