HENCE meagre pale Disease,
From the crude banquets of Intemperance bred;
Nurs'd in the sluggard bed,
And folded in the arms of pamper'd Ease:
Hence to Boeotian bogs;
Whence humid Auster on his dropping wings
Gross exhalations brings,
Where rank effluvia from the marshy brake,
Or murky stagnate lake
Pregnant with ills arise in misty fogs.
And come, Hygeia, bland and fair,
Flush'd with the glow of morning air;
With coral lip and sparkling eye,
Complexion of ensanguin'd dye;
With chearful smile, and open brow,
Where Care could ne'er one surrow plow;
With steady step, and aspect sleek,
The rose that glows on Stella's cheek,
And snowy bosom, whence exhales
The sweetness of Etesian gales.