Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/21

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,