Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/46

From the crude ore can spin the ductile gold?
Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund
Of plagues: but more immedicable ills
220Attend the lean extreme. For physic knows
How to disburden the too tumid veins,
Even how to ripen the half-labour'd blood;
But to unlock the elemental tubes,
Collaps'd and shrunk with long inanity,
225And with balsamic nutriment repair
The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid
Old age grow green, and wear a second spring;
Or the tall ash, long ravish'd from the foil,
Thro' wither'd veins imbibe the vernal dew.
230When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait
Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain:
For the keen appetite will feast beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne'er without danger meets its own reverse.