Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/68

To gossip; turns, returns, with constant stress
Wearying himself to fly from weariness.
But now retired, sleep half his life employs,
And fain would all the day, whose light annoys.
Fool! wouldst thou know the sweetness of repose?
Seek it in work. The soul fastidious grows
Ever in sloth, self-gnawing and oppress'd,
And finds its torment even in its rest.

 But if to Bacchus and to Ceres given,
Before his table laid, from morn to even,
At ease he fills himself, as held in stall:
See him his stomach make his god, his all!
Nor earth nor sea suffice his appetite;
Ill-tongued and gluttonous the like unite:
With such he passes his vain days along,
In drunken routs obscene, with toast and song,
And jests and dissolute delights; his aim
To gorge unmeasured, riot without shame.
But soon with these begins to blunt and lose
Stomach and appetite: he finds refuse
Offended Nature, as insipid food,
The savours others delicacies view'd.
Vainly from either India he seeks
For stimulants; in vain from art bespeaks
Fresh sauces, which his palate will reject;
His longings heighten'd, but life's vigour wreck'd;