Old age grow green, and wear a second spring;
Or the tall ash, long ravish'd from the soil,
Through wither'd veins imbibe the vernal dew.
When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait
Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain:
For the keen appetite will feast beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne'er without danger meets its own reverse.
Too greedily the exhausted veins absorb
The recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers
Oft to the' extinction of the vital flame.
To the pale cities, by the firm-set siege
And famine humbled, may this verse be borne;
And hear, ye hardiest sons that Albion breeds,
Long toss'd and famish'd on the wintry main:
The war shook off, or hospitable shore
Attain'd, with temperance bear the shock of joy;
Nor crown with festive rites the' auspicious day;
Such feast might prove more fatal than the waves,
Than war or famine. While the vital fire
Burns feebly, heap not the green fuel on;
But prudently foment the wandering spark
With what the soonest feeds its kindred touch:
Be frugal e'en of that: a little give
At first; that kindled, add a little more;
Till, by deliberate nourishing, the flame,
Revived, with all its wonted vigour glows.
But though the two (the full and the jejune)
Extremes have each their vice; it much avails
Ever with gentle tide to ebb and flow
From this to that: so nature learns to bear
Whatever chance or headlong appetite
May bring. Besides a meagre day subdues
The cruder clods by sloth or luxury
Collected, and unloads the wheels of life.
Sometimes a coy aversion to the feast
Comes on, while yet no blacker omen lours:
Then is a time to shun the tempting board,
Were it your natal or your nuptial day.
Perhaps a fast so seasonable starves
The latent seeds of woe, which rooted once
Might cost you labour. But the day return'd
Of festal luxury, the wise indulge
Most in the tender vegetable breed:
Then chiefly when the summer beams inflame
The brazen heavens; or angry Sirius sheds
A feverish taint through the still gulf of air,
The moist cool viands then, and flowing cup
From the fresh dairy-virgin's liberal hand,
Will save your head from harm, though round
the world
The dreaded Causos' roll his wasteful fires.
Pale humid Winter loves the generous board,
The meal more copious, and a warmer fare;
And longs with old wood and old wine to cheer
His quaking heart. The seasons which divide
The' empires of heat and cold; by neither claim'd,
Influenced by both; a middle regimen
Impose. Through autumn's languishing domain
Descending, nature by degrees invites
To glowing luxury. But from the depth
Of winter when the' invigorated year
Emerges; when Favonius, flush'd with love,
Toyful and young, in every breeze descends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride;
Then, shepherds, then begin to spare your flocks;
And learn, with wise humanity, to check
The lust of blood. Now pregnant earth commits A various offspring to the' indulgent sky:
Now bounteous Nature feeds with lavish hand
The prone creation: yields what once sufficed
Their dainty sovereign, when the world was
young;
Ere yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seized
The human breast.-Each rolling month matures
The food that suits it most; so does each clime.
Far in the horrid realms of Winter, where
The' establish'd ocean heaps a monstrous waste
Of shining rocks and mountains to the pole,
There lives a hardy race, whose plainest wants
Relentless Earth, their cruel stepmother,
Regards not. On the waste of iron fields
Untamed, intractable, no harvests wave;
Pomona hates them, and the clownish god
Who tends the garden. In this frozen world
Such cooling gifts were vain: a fitter meal
Is earn'd with ease; for here the fruitful spawn
Of Ocean swarms, and heaps their genial board
With generous fare and luxury profuse.
These are their bread, the only bread they know;
These, and their willing slave, the deer, that
The shrubby herbage on their meagre hills.
Girt by the burning Zone, not thus the South
Her swarthy sons in either Ind maintains;
Or thirsty Libya; from whose fervid loins
The lion bursts, and every fiend that roams
The' affrighted wilderness. The mountain herd,
Adust and dry, no sweet repast affords :
Nor does the tepid main such kinds produce,
So perfect, so delicious as the shoals
Of icy Zembla. Rashly where the blood
Brews feverish frays; where scarce the tubes
Its tumid fervour and tempestuous course;
Kind Nature tempts not to such gifts as these.
But here in livid ripeness melts the grape;
Here, finish'd by invigorating suns,
Through the green shade the golden orange glows;
Spontaneous here the turgid melon yields
A generous pulp; the cocoa swells on high
With milky riches; and in horrid mail
The crisp ananas3 wraps its poignant sweets,
Earth's vaunted progeny: in ruder air
Too coy to flourish, e'en too proud to live;
Or hardly raised by artificial fire
To vapid life. Here with a mother's smile
Glad Amalthea pours her copious horn.
Here buxom Ceres reigns: the' autumnal sea
In boundless billows fluctuates o'er their plains.
What suits the climate best, what suits the men,
Nature profuses most, and most the taste
Demands. The fountain, edged with racy wine
Or acid fruit, bedews their thirsty souls.
The breeze, eternal breathing round their limbs,
Supports in else intolerable air:
While the cool palm, the plantain, and the grove
That waves on gloomy Lebanon, assuage
The torrid hell that beams upon their heads.
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander through your gelid reign.
I burn to view the' enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thundering o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
3 The pine apple.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song.
Here from the desert down the rumbling steep First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding
In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the east;
And there, in gothic solitude reclined,
The cheerless Tanaïs pours his hoary urn.
What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades
Inwrap these infant floods! Through every nerve
A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear
Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round;
And more gigantic still, the' impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom,
Are these the confines of some fairy world?
A land of genii? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown nations? if indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies. And whither leads,
To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain,
That subterraneous way? Propitious maids,
Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread
This trembling ground. The task remains to sing
Your gifts (so Paan, so the powers of health
Command), to praise your crystal element:
The chief ingredient in Heaven's various works;
Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem,
Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine;
The vehicle, the source, of nutriment
And life, to all that vegetate or live.
O comfortable streams! with eager lips
And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff
New life in you; fresh vigour fills their veins.
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