Exercise

THro' various toils th' adventurous muse has past; But half the toil, and more than half, remains. Rude is her theme, and hardly fit for song; Plain, and of little ornament; and I But little practis'd in th' Aonian arts. Yet not in vain such labours have we tried, If ought these lays the fickle health confirm. To you, ye delicate, I write; for you I tame my youth to philosophic cares, And grow still paler by the midnight lamps. Not to debilitate with timorous rules A hardy frame; nor needlesly to brave Unglorious dangers, proud of mortal strength; Is all the lesson that in wholsome years Concerns the strong. His care were ill bestow'd Who would with warm effeminacy nurse The thriving oak, which on the mountain's brow Bears all the blasts that sweep the wintry heav'n.

Behold the labourer of the glebe, who toils In dust, in rain, in cold and sultry skies: Save but the grain from mildews and the flood. Nought anxious he what sickly stars ascend. He knows no laws by Esculapius given; He studies none. Yet him nor midnight fogs Infest, nor those envenom'd shafts that fly When rabid Sirius fires th' autumnal noon. His habit pure with plain and temperate meals, Robust with labour, and by custom steel'd To every casualty of varied life; Serene he bears the peevish eastern blast, And uninfected breaths the mortal South.

Such the reward of rude and sober life; Of labour such. By health the peasant's toil Is well repaid; if exercise were pain Indeed, and temperance pain. By arts like these Laconia nurs'd of old her hardy sons; And Rome's unconquer'd legions urg'd their way, Unhurt, thro' every toil in every clime.

Toil, and be strong. By toil the flaccid nerves Grow firm, and gain a more compacted tone; The greener juices are by toil subdu'd, Mellow'd, and subtilis'd; the vapid old Expell'd, and all the rancor of the blood. Come, my companions, ye who feel the charms Of nature and the year; come, let us stray Where chance or fancy leads our roving walk: Come, while the soft voluptuous breezes fan The fleecy heavens, enwrap the limbs in balm, And shed a charming languor o'er the soul. Nor when bright Winter sows with prickly frost The vigorous ether, in unmanly warmth Indulge at home; nor even when Eurus' blasts This way and that convolve the lab'ring woods. My liberal walks, save when the skies in rain Or fogs relent, no season should confine Or to the cloister'd gallery or arcade. Go, climb the mountain; from th' etherial source Imbibe the recent gale. The chearful morn Beams o'er the hills; go, mount th' exulting steed, Already, see, the deep-mouth'd beagles catch The tainted mazes; and, on eager sport Intent, with emulous impatience try Each doubtful track. Or, if a nobler prey Delight you more, go chase the desperate deer; And thro' its deepest solitudes awake The vocal forest with the jovial horn.

But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale Exceed your strength; a sport of less fatigue, Not less delightful, the prolific stream Affords. The chrystal rivulet, that o'er A stony channel rolls its rapid maze, Swarms with the silver fry. Such, thro' the bounds Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent; Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the stream On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air, Liddal; till now, except in Doric lays Tun'd to her murmurs by her love-sick swains, Unknown in song: Tho' not a purer stream, Thro' meads more flow'ry, or more romantic groves, Rolls toward the western main. Hail sacred flood! May still thy hospitable swains be blest In rural innocence; thy mountains still Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay With painted meadows, and the golden grain! Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new, Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys, In thy transparent eddies have I lav'd: Oft trac'd with patient steps thy fairy banks, With the well-imitated fly to hook The eager trout, and with the slender line And yielding rod sollicite to the shore The struggling panting prey; while vernal clouds And tepid gales obscur'd the ruffled pool, And from the deeps call'd forth the wanton swarms.

Form'd on the Samian school, or those of Ind, There are who think these pastimes scarce humane. Yet in my mind (and not relentless I) His life is pure that wears no fouler stains. But if thro' genuine tenderness of heart, Or secret want of relish for the game, You shun the glories of the chace, nor care To haunt the peopled stream; the garden yields A soft amusement, an humane delight. To raise th' insipid nature of the ground; Or tame its savage genius to the grace Of careless sweet rusticity, that seems The amiable result of happy chance, Is to create; and gives a god-like joy, Which every year improves. Nor thou disdain To check the lawless riot of the trees, To plant the grove, or turn the barren mould. O happy he! whom, when his years decline, (His fortune and his fame by worthy means Attain'd, and equal to his moderate mind; His life approv'd by all the wise and good, Even envied by the vain) the peaceful groves Of Epicurus, from this stormy world, Receive to rest; of all ungrateful cares Absolv'd, and sacred from the selfish crowd. Happiest of men! if the same soil invites A chosen few, companions of his youth, Once fellow-rakes perhaps, now rural friends; With whom in easy commerce to pursue Nature's free charms, and vie for sylvan fame; A fair ambition; void of strife or guile, Or jealousy, or pain to be outdone. Who plans th' enchanted garden, who directs The visto best, and best conducts the stream; Whose groves the fastest thicken and ascend; Whom first the welcome spring salutes; who shews The earliest bloom, the sweetest proudest charms, Of Flora; who best gives Pomona's juice To match the sprightly genius of Champain. Thrice happy days! in rural business past. Blest winter nights! when, as the genial fire Chears the wide hall, his cordial family With soft domestic arts the hours beguile, And pleasing talk that starts no timerous fame, With witless wantoness to hunt it down: Or thro' the fairy-land of tale or song Delighted wander, in fictitious fates Engag'd, and all that strikes humanity; Till lost in fable, they the stealing hour Of timely rest forget. Sometimes, at eve, His neighbours lift the latch, and bless unhid His festal roof; while, o'er the light repast, And sprightly cups, they mix in social joy; And, thro' the maze of conversation, trace Whate'er amuses or improves the mind. Sometimes at eve (for I delight to taste The native zest and flavour of the fruit, Where sense grows wild, and takes of no manure) The decent, honest, chearful husbandman Should drown his labours in my friendly bowl; And at my table find himself at home. Whate'er you study, in whate'er you sweat, Indulge your taste. Some love the manly foils; The tennis some; and some the graceful dance. Others, more hardy, range the purple heath, Or naked stubble; where from field to field The sounding coveys urge their labouring flight; Eager amid the rising cloud to pour The gun's unerring thunder: And there are Whom still the meed of the green archer charms. He chuses best, whose labour entertains His vacant fancy most: The toil you hate Fatigues you soon, and scarce improves your limbs.

As beauty still has blemish; and the mind The most accomplish'd its imperfect side; Few bodies are there of that happy mould But some one part is weaker than the rest: The legs, perhaps, or arms refuse their load, Or the chest labours. These assiduously, But gently, in their proper arts employ'd, Acquire a vigor and elastic spring To which they were not born. But weaker parts Abhor fatigue and violent discipline.

Begin with gentle toils; and, as your nerves Grow firm, to hardier by just steps aspire. The prudent, even in every moderate walk, At first but saunter, and by flow degrees Increase their pace. This doctrine of the wife Well knows the master of the flying steed. First from the goal the manag'd coursers play On bended reins; as yet the skilful youth Repress their foamy pride; but every breath The race grows warmer, and the tempest swells; Till all the fiery mettle has its way, And the thick thunder hurries o'er the plain. When all at once from indolence to toil You spring, the fibres by the hasty shock Are tir'd and crack'd, before their unctuous coats, Compress'd, can pour the lubricating balm. Besides, collected in the passive veins, The purple mass a sudden torrent rolls, O'erpowers the heart, and deluges the lungs With dangerous inundation: Oft the source Of fatal woes; a cough that foams with blood, Asthma, and feller Peripneumonie, Or the slow minings of the hectic fire.

Th' athletic fool, to whom what heav'n deny'd Of soul is well compensated in limbs, Oft 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. Pursued 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 To 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 In wish'd repose, nor court the fanning gale, Nor taste the spring. O! by the sacred tears Of widows, orphans, mothers, sisters, sires, Forbear! No other pestilence has driven Such myriads o'er th' irremeable deep. Why this so fatal, the sagacious muse Thro' nature's cunning labyrinths could trace: But there are secrets which who knows not now, Must, ere he reach them, climb the heapy Alps Of science; and devote seven years to toil. Besides, I would not stun your patient ears With what it little boots you to attain. He knows enough, the mariner, who knows Where lurk the shelves, and where the whirlpools boil, What signs portend the storm: To subtler minds He leaves to scan, from what mysterious cause Charybdis rages in th' Ionian wave; Whence those impetuous currents in the main, Which neither oar nor sail can stem; and why The roughning deep expects the storm, as sure As red Orion mounts the shrowded heaven.

In ancient times, when Rome with Athens vied For polish'd luxury and useful arts; All hot and reeking from th' Olympic strife, And warm Palestra, in the tepid bath Th' athletic youth relax'd their weary'd limbs. Soft oils bedew'd them, with the grateful pow'rs Of Nard and Cassia fraught, to sooth and heal The cherish'd nerves. Our less voluptuous clime Not much invites us to such arts as these. 'Tis not for those, whom gelid skies embrace, And chilling fogs; whose perspiration feels Such frequent bars from Eurus and the North; 'Tis not for those to cultivate a skin Too soft; or teach the recremental fume Too fast to crowd thro' such precarious ways. For thro' the small arterial mouths, that pierce In endless millions the close-woven skin, The baser fluids in a constant stream Escape, and viewless melt into the winds. While this eternal, this most copious waste Of blood degenerate into vapid brine, Maintains its wonted measure; all the powers Of health befriend you, all the wheels of life With ease and pleasure move: But this restrain'd Or more or less, so more or less you feel The functions labour. From this fatal source What woes descend is never to be sung. To take their numbers, were to count the sands That ride in whirlwind the parch'd Lybian air; Or waves that, when the blustering North embroils The Baltic, thunder on the German shore. Subject not then, by soft emollient arts, This grand expence, on which your fates depend To every caprice of the sky; nor thwart The genius of your clime: For from the blood Least fickle rise the recremental steams, And least obnoxious to the styptic air, Which breathe thro' straiter and more callous pores. The temper'd Scythian hence, half-naked treads His boundless snows, nor rues th' inclement heaven; And hence our painted ancestors defied The East; nor curs'd, like us, their fickle sky.

The body moulded by the clime, indures Th' Equator heats, or Hyperborean frost: Except by habits foreign to its turn, Unwise, you counteract its forming pow'r. Rude at the first, the winter shocks you less By long acquaintance: Study then your sky, Form to its manners your obsequious frame, And learn to suffer what you cannot shun. Against the rigors of a damp cold heav'n To fortify their bodies, some frequent The gelid cistern; and, where nought forbids, I praise their dauntless heart. A frame so steel'd Dreads not the cough, nor those ungenial blasts, That breathe the Tertian or fell Rheumatism; The nerves so temper'd never quit their tone, No chronic languors haunt such hardy breasts. But all things have their bounds: And he who makes By daily use the kindest regimen Essential to his health, should never mix With human kind, nor art nor trade pursue. He not the safe vicissitudes of life Without some shock endures; ill-fitted he To want the known, or bear unusual things. Besides, the powerful remedies of pain (Since pain in spite of all our care will come) Should never with your prosperous days of health Grow too familiar: For by frequent use The strongest medicines lose their healing power, And even the surest poisons theirs to kill.

Let those who from the frozen Arctos reach Parch'd Mauritania, or the sultry West, Or the wide flood that waters Indostan, Plunge thrice a day, and in the tepid wave Untwist their stubborn pores; that full and free Th' evaporation thro' the softned skin May bear proportion to the swelling blood. So shall they 'scape the fever's rapid flames; So feel untainted the hot breath of hell. With us, the man of no complaint demands The warm ablution, just enough to clear The sluices of the skin, enough to keep The body sacred from indecent soil. Still to be pure, even did it not conduce (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 A 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) To 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: Where nature feeds too corpulent a frame 'Tis wifely done. For while the thrifty veins, Impatient of lean penury, devour The treasur'd oil, then is the happiest time To shake the lazy balsam from its cells. Now while the stomach from the full repast Subsides; but ere returning hunger gnaws; Ye leaner habits give an hour to toil: And ye whom no luxuriancy of growth Oppresses yet, or threatens to oppress. But from the recent meal no labours please, Of limbs or mind. For now the cordial powers Claim all the wandering spirits to a work Of strong and subtle toil, and great event; A work of time: and you may rue the day You hurried, with ill-seasoned exercise, A half concocted chyle into the blood. The body overcharg'd with unctuous phlegm Much toil demands: The lean elastic less. While winter chills the blood, and binds the veins, No labours are too hard: By those you 'scape The slow diseases of the torpid year; Endless to name; to one of which alone, To that which tears the nerves, the toil of slaves Is pleasure: Oh! from such inhuman pains May all be free who merit not the wheel! But from the burning Lion when the sun Pours down his sultry wrath; now while the blood Too much already maddens in the veins, And all the finer fluids thro' the skin Explore their flight; me, near the cool cascade Reclin'd, or sauntring in the lofty grove, No needless slight occasion should engage To pant and sweat beneath the fiery noon. Now the fresh morn alone and mellow eve To shady walks and active rural sports Invite. But, while the chilling dews descend, May nothing tempt you to the cold embrace Of humid skies: Tho' 'tis no vulgar joy To trace the horrors of the solemn wood, While the soft evening saddens into night: Tho' the sweet poet of the vernal groves Melts all the night in strains of amorous woe.

The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world Expands her sable wings. Great nature droops Thro' all her works. Now happy he whose toil Has o'er his languid powerless limbs diffus'd A pleasing lassitude: He not in vain Invokes the gentle deity of dreams. His powers the most voluptuously dissolve In soft repose: On him the balmy dews Of sleep with double nutriment descend. But would you sweetly waste the blank of night In deep oblivion; or on fancy's wings Visit the paradise of happy dreams, And waken chearful as the lively morn; Oppress not nature sinking down to rest With feasts too late, too solid, or too full. But be the first concoction half-matur'd, Ere you to mighty indolence resign Your passive faculties. He from the toils And troubles of the day to heavier toil Retires, whom trembling from the tower that rocks Amid the clouds, or Calpe's hideous height, The busy dæmons hurl, or in the main O'erwhelm, or bury struggling under ground. Not all a monarch's luxury the woes Can counterpoise, of that most wretched man, Whose nights are shaken with the frantic fits Of wild Orestes; whose delirious brain, Stung by the furies, works with poisoned thought! While pale and monstrous painting shocks the soul; And mangled consciousness bemoans itself For ever torn; and chaos floating round. What dreams presage, what dangers these or those Portend to sanity, tho' prudent seers Reveal'd of old, and men of deathless fame We would not to the superstitious mind Suggest new throbs, new vanities of fear. 'Tis ours to teach you from the peaceful night To banish omens, and all restless woes.

In study some protract the silent hours, Which others consecrate to mirth and wine; And sleep till noon, and hardly live till night. But surely this redeems not from the shades One hour of life. Nor does it nought avail What season you to drowsy Morpheus give Of th' ever-varying circle of the day; Or whether, thro' the tedious winter gloom, You tempt the midnight or the morning damps. The body, fresh and vigorous from repose, Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils Of wakeful day, exhausted and unstrung, Weakly resists the nights unwholsome breath. The grand discharge, th' effusion of the skin, Slowly impair'd, the languid maladies Creep on, and thro' the sickning functions steal So, when the chilling East invades the spring, The delicate Narcissus pines away In hectic languor; and a slow disease Taints all the family of flowers, condemn'd To cruel heav'ns. But why, already prone To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane? O shame! O pity! nipt with pale Quadrille, And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies!

By toil subdu'd, the Warrior and the Hind Sleep fast and deep; their active functions soon With generous streams the subtle tubes supply, And soon the tonick irritable nerves Feel the fresh impulse, and awake the soul. The sons of indolence, with long repose, Grow torpid; and, with slowest Lethe drunk, Feebly and lingringly return to life, Blunt every sense and powerless every limb. Ye, prone to sleep (whom sleeping most annoys) On the hard mattrass or elastic couch Extend your limbs, and wean yourselves from sloth; Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain And springy nerves, the blandishments of down. Nor envy while the buried bacchanal Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams.

He without riot, in the balmy feast Of life, the wants of nature has supplied Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul. But pliant nature more or less demands, As custom forms her; and all sudden change She hates of habit, even from bad to good. If faults in life, or new emergencies, From habits urge you by long time confirm'd, Slow may the change arrive, and stage by stage; Slow as the shadow o'er the dial moves, Slow as the stealing progress of the year.

Observe the circling year. How unperceiv'd Her seasons change! Behold! by slow degrees, Stern Winter tam'd into a ruder spring; The ripen'd Spring a milder summer glows; Departing Summer sheds Pomona's store; And aged Autumn brews the winter-storm. Slow as they come, these changes come not void Of mortal shocks: The cold and torrid reigns, The two great periods of th' important year, Are in their first approaches seldom safe: Funereal autumn all the sickly dread, And the black fates deform the lovely spring. He well advis'd, who taught our wiser sires Early to borrow Muscovy's warm spoils, Ere the first frost has touch'd the tender blade; And late resign them, tho' the wanton spring Should deck her charms with all her sister's rays. For while the effluence of the skin maintains Its native measure, the pleuritic Spring Glides harmless by; and Autumn, sick to death With fallow Quartans, no contagion breathes.

I in prophetic numbers could unfold The omens of the year: what seasons teem With what diseases; what the humid South Prepares, and what the Dæmon of the East: But you perhaps refuse the tedious song. Besides, whatever plagues in heat, or cold, Or drought, or moisture dwell, they hurt not you, Skill'd to correct the vices of the sky, And taught already how to each extream To bend your life. But should the public bane Infect you, or some trespass of your own, Or flaw of nature hint mortality: Soon as a not unpleasing horror glides Along the spine, thro' all your torpid limbs; When first the head throbs, or the stomach feels A sickly load, a weary pain the loins; Be Celsus call'd: The fates come rushing on; The rapid fates admit of no delay. While wilful you, and fatally secure, Expect to morrow's more auspicious fun, The growing pest, whose infancy was weak And easy vanquish'd, with triumphant sway O'erpow'rs your life. For want of timely care Millions have died of medicable wounds.

Ah! in what perils is vain life engag'd! What flight neglects, what trivial faults destroy The hardiest frame! Of indolence, of toil, We die; of want, of superfluity. The all-surrounding heaven, the vital air, Is big with death. And, tho' the putrid South Be shut; tho' no convulsive agony Shake, from the deep foundations of the world, Th' imprisoned plagues; a secret venom oft Corrupts the air, the water, and the land. What livid deaths has sad Byzantium seen! How oft has Cairo, with a mother's woe. Wept o'er her slaughter'd sons, and lonely streets! Even Albion, girt with less malignant skies, Albion the poison of the Gods has drunk, And felt the sting of monsters all her own.

Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent Their ancient rage, at Bosworth's purple field; While, for which tyrant England should receive, Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd, And daily horrors; till the Fates were drunk With kindred blood by kindred hands profus'd: Another plague of more gygantic arm Arose, a monster never known before Rear'd from Cocytus its portentuous head. This rapid fury not, like other pests, Pursued a gradual course, but in a day Rush'd as a storm o'er half th' astonish'd isle, And strew'd with sudden carcasses the land. First thro' the shoulders, or whatever part Was seiz'd the first, a fervid vapour sprung. With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark Shot to the heart, and kindled all within; And soon the surface caught the spreading fires. Thro' all the yielding pores the melted blood Gush'd out in smoaky sweats; but nought assuag'd The torrid heat within, nor aught reliev'd The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil, Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain, They toss'd from side to side. In vain the stream Ran full and clear, they burnt and thirsted still. The restless arteries with rapid blood Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly The breath was fetch'd, and with huge lab'rings heav'd. At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head, A wild delirium came; their weeping friends Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs. Harass'd with toil on toil, the sinking powers Lay prostrate and o'erthrown; a ponderous sleep Wrapt all the senses up: They slept and died.

In some a gentle horror crept at first O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin Withheld their moisture, till by art provok'd The sweats o'erflow'd; but in a clammy tide: Now free and copious, now restrain'd and slow; Of tinctures various, as the temperature Had mix'd the blood; and rank with fetid steams: As if the pent-up humors by delay Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign. Here lay their hopes (tho' little hope remain'd) With full effusion of perpetual sweats To drive the venom out. And here the fates Were kind, that long they lingered not in pain. For who surviv'd the sun's diurnal race Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem'd: Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third.

Of many thousands few untainted 'scap'd; Of those infected fewer 'scap'd alive: Of those who liv'd some felt a second blow; And whom the second spar'd a third destroy'd. Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land Th' infected city pour'd her hurrying swarms: Rous'd by the flames that fir'd her seats around, Th' infected country rush'd into the town. Some, sad at home, and in the desart some, Abjur'd the fatal commerce of mankind; In vain: where'er they fled the Fates pursued. Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main, To seek protection in far-distant skies; But none they found. It seem'd the general air Was then at enmity with English blood. For, but the race of England, all were safe In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste The foreign blood which Albion then contain'd. Where should they fly.? The circumambient heaven Involv'd them still; and every breeze was bane. Where find relief? The salutary art Was mute; and, startled at the new disease, In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave. To heaven with suppliant rites they sent their pray'rs; Heav'n heard them not. Of every hope depriv'd; Fatigu'd with vain resources; and subdued With woes resistless and enfeebling fear; Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow. Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard, Nor ought was seen but ghastly views of death; Infectious horror ran from face to face, And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then To tend the sick, and in their turns to die. In heaps they fell: And oft one bed, they say. The sickening, dying, and the dead contain'd.

Ye guardian Gods, on whom the Fates depend Of tottering Albion! Ye eternal fires, That lead thro' heav'n the wandering year! Ye powers, That o'er th' incircling elements preside May nothing worse than what this age has seen Arrive! Enough abroad, enough at home Has Albion bled. Here a distemper'd heaven Has thin'd her cities; from those lofty cliffs That awe proud Gaul, to Thule's wintry reign; While in the West, beyond th' Atlantic foam, Her bravest sons, keen for the fight, have died The death of cowards, and of common men; Sunk void of wounds, and fall'n without renown.

But from these views the weeping Muses turn, And other themes invite my wandering song.