Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MORAL COSMETICS, by HORACE SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MORAL COSMETICS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ye who would save your features florid
Last Line: Time, fortune, fate.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): Life; Time; Youth


YE who would save your features florid,
Lithe limbs, bright eyes, unwrinkled forehead
From age's devastation horrid,
Adopt this plan: --
'Twill make, in climates cold or torrid,
A hale old man.

Avoid, in youth, luxurious diet,
Restrain the passions' 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 books, friends, music, polished leisure;
The mind, not sense,
Made the sole scale by which ye 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.





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