Page:The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books.djvu/89

(As much it does) to health, were greatly worth
Your daily pains. 'Tis this adorns the rich;
The want of this is poverty's worst woe:
With this external virtue, age maintains
330A decent grace; without it, youth and charms
Are loathsome. This the skilful virgin knows:
So doubtless do your wives. For married fires,
As well as lovers, still pretend to taste;
Nor is it less (all prudent wives can tell)
335To lose a husband's, than a lover's heart.

But now the hours and seasons when to toil,
From foreign themes recall my wandering song.
Some labour fasting, or but slightly fed,
To lull the grinding stomach's hungry rage:
340Where nature feeds too corpulent a frame
'Tis wifely done.For while the thrifty veins,
Impatient of lean penury, devour