But other ills th’ ambiguous feast pursue, Besides provoking the lascivious taste. 180 Such various foods, tho’ harmless each alone, Each other violate; and oft we see What strife is brew’d, and what pernicious bane, From combinations of innoxious things. Th’ unbounded taste I mean not to confine 185 To hermit’s diet, needlessly severe. But would you long the sweets of health enjoy, Or husband pleasure; at one impious meal Exhaust not half the bounties of the year, And of each realm. It matters not mean while 190 How much to morrow differ from to day; So far indulge: ’tis fit, besides, that man, To change obnoxious, be to change inur’d. But stay the curious appetite, and taste With caution fruits you never tried before. 195 For want of use the kindest aliment Sometimes offends; while custom tames the rage Of poison to mild amity with life. So heav’n has form’d us to the general taste Of all its gifts; so custom has improv’d 200 This bent of nature; that few simple foods, Of all that earth, or air, or ocean yield, But by excess offend. Beyond the sense Of light refection, at the genial board Indulge not often; nor protract the feast 205 To dull satiety; till soft and slow A drowzy death creeps on, th’ expansive soul Oppress’d, and smother’d the celestial fire. The stomach, urg’d beyond its active tone, Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues 210 The softest food: unfinish’d and deprav’d, The chyle, in all its future wand’rings, owns Its turbid fountain; not by purer streams So to be clear’d, but foulness will remain. To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt 215 Th’ unripen’d grape? Or what mechanic skill From the crude ore can spin the ductile gold? Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund Of plagues: but more immedicable ills Attend the lean extreme. For physic knows 220 How to disburden the too tumid veins, Even how to ripen the half-labour’d blood; But to unlock the elemental tubes, Collaps’d and shrunk with long inanity, And with balsamic nutriment repair 225 The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid Old age grow green, and wear a second spring; Or the tall ash, long ravish’d from the soil, Thro’ wither’d veins imbibe the vernal dew. When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait 230 Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain: For the keen appetite will feast beyond What nature well can bear; and one extreme Ne’er without danger meets its own reverse. Too greedily th’ exhausted veins absorb 235 The recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers Oft to th’ extinction of the vital flame. To the pale cities, by the firm-set siege