Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/41

Burn in the palms, and parch the roughning tongue;
Or much diminish or too much increase
Th' expence which nature's wise oeconomy,
Without or waste or avarice, maintains.
135Such cates abjur'd, let prouling hunger loose,
And bid the curious palate roam at will;
They scarce can err amid the various stores
That burst the teeming entrails of the world.

Led by sagacious taste, the ruthless king
140Of beasts on blood and slaughter only lives:
The tyger, form'd alike to cruel meals,
Would at the manger starve: Of milder seeds,
The generous horse to herbage and to grain
Confines his wish; tho' fabling Greece resound
145The Thracian steeds with human carnage wild.
Prompted by instinct's never-erring power,
Each creature knows its proper aliment;