50
The ART of
B. II.
And mellow draughts; except when winter thaws,
And half the mountains melt into the tide.
420Tho' third were ne'er so resolute, avoid
The sordid lake, and all such drowsy floods
As fill from Lethe Belgia's slow canals;
(With rest corrupt, with vegetation green;
Squalid with generation, and the birth
425Of little monsters;) till the power of fire
Has from profane embraces disengag'd
The violated lymph.The virgin stream
In boiling wastes its finer soul in air.
Nothing like simple element dilutes
430The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow.
But where the stomach, indolently given,
Toys with its duty, animate with wine
Th' insipid stream: Tho' golden Ceres yields
A
