Scottish physician, poet & satirist (1709-1779)
We know great Nature's pow'r,
Mother of things, whose vast unbounded sway
From the deep centre all around extends
Wide to the flaming barriers of the world.
We feel her power; we strive not to repress
(Vainly repress'd, or to deformity)
Her lawful growth: ours be the task alone
To check her rude excrescencies, to prune
Her wanton overgrowth, and where she strays
In uncouth shapes, to lead her gently back,
With prudent hand, to form and better use.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Impious! forbear thus the first general hail.
To disappoint, Increase and multiply,
To shed thy blossoms thro' the desert air,
And sow thy perish'd offspring in the winds.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Autumn ripens in the summer's ray.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
If from thy secret bed
Of luxury unbidden offspring rise,
Let them be kindly welcom'd to the day.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
What Nature bids is good, is wise, and faultless we obey.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
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.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
'Tis not for mortals always to be blest.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
The boy may wrestle, when
Night--working Fancy steals him to the arms
Of nymph oft wish'd awake, and, 'mid the rage
Of the soft tumult, ev'ry turgid cell
Spontaneous disembogues its lucid store,
Bland and of azure tinct.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Now, with your happy arms her waist surround,
Fond--grasping; on her swelling bosom now
Recline your cheek, with eager kisses press
Her balmy lips, and, drinking from her eyes
Resistless love, the tender flame confess,
Ineffable but by the murmuring voice
Of genuine joy; then hug and kiss again,
Strech'd on the flow'ry turf, while joyful glows
Thy manly pride, and, throbbing with desire,
Pants earnest, felt thro' all the obstacles
That interveen: but love, whose fervent course
Mountains nor seas oppose, can soon remove
Barriers so slight.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
For wisest ends this universal Power
Gave appetites, from whose quick impulse life
Subsists, by which we only live, all life
Insipid else, unactive, unenjoy'd.
Hence to this peopled earth, which, that extinct,
That flame for propagation, soon would roll
A lifeless mass, and vainly cumber heaven.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Then love of pleasure sways each heart, and we
From that no more than from ourselves can fly.
Blameless when govern'd well. But where it errs
Extravagant, and wildly leads to ill,
Public or private, there its curbing pow'r
Cool reason must exert.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigor, and warm life conveys
To every particle that moves or lives.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
Ye youths and virgins, when your generous blood
Has drunk the warmth of fifteen summers, now
The loves invite; now to new rapture wakes
The finish'd sense: while stung with keen desire
The madd'ning boy his bashful fetters bursts;
And, urg'd with secret flames, the riper maid,
Conscious and shy, betrays her smarting breast.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Then when her lovely limbs,
Oft lovely deem'd, far lovelier now beheld,
Thro' all your trembling joints increase the flame,
Forthwith discover to her dazzled sight
The stately novelty, and to her hand
Usher the new acquaintance. She, perhaps
Averse, will coldly chide, and half afraid,
Blushing, half pleas'd, the tumid wonder view
With neck retorted, and oblique regard;
Nor quite her curious eye indulging, nor
Refraining quite. Perhaps when you attempt
The sweet admission, toyful she resists
With shy reluctance; nathless you pursue
The soft attack, and push the gentle war
Fervent, till quite o'erpower'd the melting maid
Faintly opposes. On the brink at last
Arriv'd of giddy rapture, plunge not in
Precipitant, but spare a virgin's pain;
Oh, spare a gentle virgin! spare yourself!
Lest sanguine war Love's tender rites profane
With fierce dilaceration, and dire pangs
Reciprocal. Nor droop because the door
Of bliss seems shut and barricaded strong;
But triumph rather in this faithful pledge
Of innocence, and fair virginity.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Ye generous maids, revenge your sex's wrong;
Let not the mean destroyer e'er approach
Your sacred charms. Now muster all your pride,
Contempt and scorn, that, shot from Beauty's eye,
Confounds the mighty impudent, and smites
The front unknown to shame.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
Ye who amid this feverish world would wear
A body free of pain, of cares a mind,
Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;
Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead,
The dying, sickening, and the living world
Exhal'd, to sully heaven's transparent dome
With dim mortality.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
How sickly grow,
How pale, the plants in those ill-fated vales
That, circled round with the gigantic heap
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel, the genial vigor of the sun!
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health