skies. If droughty regions parch The skin and lungs, and bake the thick'ning blood;
Deep in the waving forest chuse your seat,
225Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;
And wake the fountains from their secret beds,
And into lakes dilate the running stream.
Here spread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
The moist relaxing vegetable store
230Prevail in each repast: Your food supplied
By bleeding life, be gently wasted down,
By soft decoction and a mellowing heat,
To liquid balm; or, if the solid mass
You chuse, tormented in the boiling wave;
235That thro' the thirsty channels of the blood
A smooth diluted chyle may ever flow.
The fragrant dairy from its cool recess
Its nectar acid or benign will pour
To drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowl
240Of keen Sherbet the fickle taste relieve.
For with the viscous blood the simple stream
Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups
Oft dissipate more moisture than they give.
Yet when pale seasons rise, or winter rolls
245His horrors o'er the world, thou may'st indulge
In feasts more genial, and impatient broach
The mellow cask. Then too the scourging air
Provokes to keener toils than sultry droughts
Allow. But rarely we such skies blaspheme.
250Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogs
Bedew'd, our seasons droop; incumbent still
A ponderous heaven o'erwhelms the sinking soul.
Lab'ring with storms in heapy mountains rise
Th' imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades
255Had left the dungeon of eternal night,
Till black with thunder all the south descends.
Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulge
Our melting clime; except the baleful east
Withers the tender spring, and sourly checks
260The fancy of the year. Our fathers talk
Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene.
Good heaven! for what unexpiated crimes
This dismal change! The brooding elements
Do they, your powerful ministers of wrath,
265Prepare some fierce exterminating plague?
Or is it fix'd in the Decrees above
That lofty Albion melt into the main?
Indulgent nature! O dissolve this gloom!
Bind in eternal adamant the winds
270That drown or wither: Give the genial west
To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly north:
And may once more the circling seasons rule
The year; not mix in every monstrous day.
Mean time, the moist malignity to shun
275Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry champain
Swells into chearful hills; where Marjoram
And Thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the[2] Cynorrhodon with the rose For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil 280Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes. There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires. And let them see the winter morn arise, The summer evening blushing in the west; 285While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind O'erhung, defends you from the blust'ring north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish east.
O! when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,
290To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar sleep.
The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain
Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks,
295Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is studied; for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the just
And natural movements of th' harmonious frame,
300Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes
The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with incessant change
Of purest element, refreshing still
Your airy seat, and uninfected Gods.
305Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides
Th' etherial deep with endless billows laves.
His purer mansion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.
310But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain,
Involve my hill. And wheresoe'er you build;
Whether on sun-burnt Epsom, or the plains
