'MIDST flowery meads and Avon's winding floods,
Romantic hills, wild rocks, and pendent woods,
Behold fair Bath her stately front advance,
In all the pomp of Latian elegance!
The hills that rise in rich profusion round,
With gardens deck'd, or splendid villas crown'd!
There Health and Pleasure hand in hand appear,
And smiling weave their roseate arbours there.
Deep in their mossy cells beneath these hills,
The bounteous Naiads form the gushing rills.
There various springs their mineral virtues blend,
And warm in salutary streams descend;
These streams to mortals balmy health restore,
The Gout grows mild, and Cholics are no more.
Here languid nymphs regain the bloom of May,
Here cripples dance and hurl the crutch away.