In study some protract the silent hours, Which others consecrate to mirth and wine; And sleep till noon, and hardly live till night. But surely this redeems not from the shades One hour of life. Nor does it nought avail 425 What season you to drowsy Morpheus give Of th’ ever-varying circle of the day; Or whether, thro’ the tedious winter gloom, You tempt the midnight or the morning damps. The body, fresh and vigorous from repose, 430 Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils Of wakeful day, exhausted and unstrung, Weakly resists the night’s unwholsome breath. The grand discharge, th’ effusion of the skin, Slowly impair’d, the languid maladies 435 Creep on, and thro’ the sickning functions steal. So, when the chilling East invades the spring, The delicate Narcissus pines away In hectic languor; and a slow disease Taints all the family of flowers, condemn’d 440 To cruel heav’ns. But why, already prone To fade, should beauty cherish its own bane? O shame! O pity! nipt with pale Quadrille, And midnight cares, the bloom of Albion dies! By toil subdu’d, the Warrior and the Hind 445 Sleep fast and deep; their active functions soon With generous streams the subtle tubes supply, And soon the tonick irritable nerves Feel the fresh impulse, and awake the soul. The sons of indolence, with long repose, 450 Grow torpid; and, with slowest Lethe drunk, Feebly and lingringly return to life, Blunt every sense and powerless every limb. Ye, prone to sleep (whom sleeping most annoys) On the hard mattrass or elastic couch 455 Extend your limbs, and wean yourselves from sloth; Nor grudge the lean projector, of dry brain And springy nerves, the blandishments of down. Nor envy while the buried bacchanal Exhales his surfeit in prolixer dreams. 460 He without riot, in the balmy feast Of life, the wants of nature has supplied Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul. But pliant nature more or less demands, As custom forms her; and all sudden change 465 She hates of habit, even from bad to good. If faults in life, or new emergencies, From habits urge you by long time confirm’d, Slow may the change arrive, and stage by stage; Slow as the shadow o’er the dial moves, 470 Slow as the stealing progress of the year.