Ye who would have your features florid,
Lithe limbs, bright eyes, unwrinkled forehead,
From age's devastation horrid,
Adopt this plan--
'Twill make, in climate cold or torrid,
A hale old man:
Avoid in youth luxurious diet;
Restrain the passion's lawless riot;
Devoted to domestic quiet,
Be wisely gay;
So shall ye, spite of age's fiat,
Resist decay.
Seek not in Mammon's worship pleasure,
But find your richest, dearest treasure
In God, his word, his work; not leisure.
The mind, not sense,
Is the sole scale by which to measure
Your opulence.
This is the solace, this the science,
Life's purest, sweetest, best appliance,
That disappoints not man's reliance,
Whate'er his state;
But challenges, with calm defiance,
Time, fortune, fate.
--Horace Smith.