Classic Poem

First know, my friend, I do not mean
To write a treatise on the spleen;
Nor to prescribe when nerves convulse;
Nor mend th' alarum watch, your pulse.
If I am right, your question lay,
What course I take to drive away
The day-mare spleen, by whose false pleas
Men prove mere suicides in ease;
And how I do myself demean
In stormy world to live serene.
When by its magic lantern spleen
With frightful figures spread life's scene,
And threat'ning prospects urged my fears,
A stranger to the luck of heirs;
Reason, some quiet to restore,
Showed part was substance, shadow more;
With spleen's dead weight though heavy grown,
In life's rough tide I sunk not down,
But swam, till fortune threw a rope,
Buoyant on bladders filled with hope.
I always choose the plainest food
To mend viscidity of blood.
Hail! water-gruel, healing power,
Of easy access to the poor;
Thy help love's confessors implore,
And doctors secretly adore;
To thee I fly, by thee dilute,
Through veins my blood doth quicker shoot,
And by swift current throws off clean
Prolific particles of spleen.
I never sick by drinking grow,
Nor keep myself a cup too low;
And seldom Cloe's lodgings haunt,
Thrifty of spirits which I want.
Hunting I reckon very good
To brace the nerves, and stir the blood,
But after no field-honours itch,
Achieved by leaping hedge and ditch.
While spleen lies soft relaxed in bed,
Or o'er coal-fires inclines the head,
Hygeia's sons with hound and horn,
And jovial cry awake the morn.
These see her from her dusky plight,
Smeared by th' embraces of the night,
With roral wash redeem her face,
And prove herself of Titan's race,
And, mounting in loose robes the skies,
Shed light and fragrance as she flies.
Then horse and hound fierce joy display,
Exulting at the Hark-away,
And in pursuit o'er tainted ground
From lungs robust field-notes resound.
Then, as St. George the dragon slew,
Spleen pierced, trod down and dying view,
While all their spirits are on wing,
And woods, and hills, and valleys ring.
To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green;
Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies.
Laugh and be well; monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kitten, if the humour hit,
Has harlequined away the fit.
Since mirth is good on this behalf,
At some partic'lars let us laugh:
Witlings, brisk fools cursed with half sense,
That stimulates their impotence,
Who buzz in rhyme, and, like blind flies,
Err with their wings for want of eyes,
Poor authors worshipping a calf,
Deep tragedies that make us laugh,
A strict dissenter saying grace,
A lect'rer preaching for a place,
Folks, things prophetic to dispense,
Making the past the future tense,
The popish dubbing of a priest,
Fine epitaphs on knaves deceased,
Green-aproned Pythonissa's rage,
Great Aesculapius on his stage,
A miser starving to be rich,
The prior of Newgate's dying speech,
A jointured widow's ritual state,
Two Jews disputing tête-à-tête,
New almanacs composed by seers,
Experiments on felons' ears,
Disdainful prudes, who ceaseless ply
The superb muscle of the eye,
A coquet's April-weather face,
A Queenb'rough mayor behind his mace,
And fops in military show,
Are sov'reign for the case in view.
If spleen-fogs rise at close of day,
I clear my ev'ning with a play,
Or to some concert take my way.
The company, the shine of lights,
The scenes of humour, music's flights,
Adjust and set the soul to rights.
Life's moving pictures, well-wrought plays,
To others' griefs attention raise:
Here, while the tragic fictions glow,
We borrow joy by pitying woe;
There, gaily comic scenes delight,
And hold true mirrors to our sight.
Virtue, in charming dress arrayed,
Calling the passions to her aid,
When moral scenes just action join,
Takes shape, and shows her face divine.
Music has charms, we all may find,
Ingratiate deeply with the mind.
When art does sound's high pow'r advance,
To music's pipe the passions dance;
Motions unwilled its pow'r have shown,
Tarantulated by a tune.
Many have held the soul to be
Nearly allied to harmony.
Her have I known indulging grief,
And shunning company's relief,
Unveil her face, and looking round,
Own, by neglecting sorrow's wound,
The consanguinity of sound.