[net.poems] A Doctor's Advice to Poets

ccf (03/14/83)

	The languid stomach curses even the pure
	Delicious fat, and all the race of oil:
	For more the oily aliments relax
	Its feeble tone; and with the eager lymph
	(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)
	Coyly they mix, and shun the slippery wiles
	The woo'd embrace.  The irresoluble oil,
	So gentle late and blandishing, in floods
	Of rancid bile o'erflows: what tumults hence,
	What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.
	Choose leaner viands, ye whose insufficient make
	To slow the gummy nutriment imbibes.

				John Armstrong, M.D.
				(1709-1779)