The Art of Preserving Health - A Poem in Four Books. John Armstrong

      325Need we the sunny situation here,

       And theatres open to the south, commend?

       Here, where the morning's misty breath infests

       More than the torrid noon? How sickly grow,

       How pale, the plants in those ill-fated vales

      330That, circled round with the gigantic heap

       Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope

       To feel, the genial vigor of the sun!

       While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames

       The verdant spring; in virgin beauty blows

      335The tender lily, languishingly sweet;

       O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,

       And autumn ripens in the summer's ray.

      ​

      Nor less the warmer living tribes demand

       The fost'ring fun: whose energy divine

      340Dwells not in mortal fire; whose generous heat

       Glows thro' the mass of grosser elements,

       And kindles into life the pond'rous spheres.

       Chear'd by thy kind invigorating warmth,

       We court thy beams, great majesty of day!

      345If not the soul, the regent of this world,

       First born of heaven, and only less than God!

      1 ↑ Hygeia the goddess of health, was, according to the genealogy of the heathen deities, the daughter of Esculapius; who, as well as Apollo, was distinguished by the name of Pæon.

      2 ↑ The wild rose, or that which grows upon the wild briar.