Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/82

205Oft from his rage, or brainless frolic, feels
His vegetation and brute force decay.
The men of better clay and finer mould
Know nature, feel the human dignity;
And scorn to vie with oxen or with apes.
210Pursued prolixly, even the gentlest toil
Is waste of health: Repose by small fatigue
Is earn'd; and (where your habit is not prone
To thaw) by the first moisture of the brows.
The fine and subtle spirits cost too much
215To be profus'd, too much the roscid balm.
But when the hard varieties of life
You toil to learn; or try the dusty chace,
Or the warm deeds of some important day:
Hot from the field, indulge not yet your limbs
220In wish'd repose, nor court the fanning gale,
Nor taste the spring. O! by the sacred tears
Of widows, orphans, mothers, sisters, sires,