Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/24

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