Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/135

400Grows vapid phlegm; along the tender nerves
(To each slight impulse tremblingly awake)
A subtle Fiend that mimics all the plagues
Rapid and restless springs from part to part.
The blooming honours of your youth are fallen;
405Your vigour pines; your vital powers decay;
Diseases haunt you; and untimely Age
Creeps on; unsocial, impotent, and lewd.
Infatuate, impious, epicure! to waste
The stores of pleasure, chearfulness, and health!
410Infatuate all who make delight their trade,
And coy perdition every hour pursue.

Who pines with Love, or in lascivious flames
Consumes, is with his own consent undone:
He chuses to be wretched, to be mad;
415And warn'd proceeds and wilful to his fate.
But there's a Passion, whose tempestuous sway