Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/45

So heav'n has form'd us to the general taste
200Of all its gifts; so custom has improv'd
This bent of nature; that few simple foods,
Of all that earth, or air, or ocean yield,
But by excess offend. Beyond the sense
Of light refection, at the genial board
205Indulge not often; nor protract the feast
To dull satiety; till soft and slow
A drowzy death creeps on, th' expansive soul
Oppress'd, and smother'd the celestial fire.
The stomach, urg'd beyond its active tone,
210Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues
The softest food: unfinish'd and deprav'd,
The chyle, in all its future wand'rings, owns
Its turbid fountain; not by purer streams
So to be clear'd, but foulness will remain.
215To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt
Th' unripen'd grape? Or what mechanic skill