Poem by John Armstrong

Lincoln Fens

BUT on the marshy plains that Lincoln spreads
Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet.
For on a rustic throne of dewy turf,
With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there presides: a meagre fiend	
Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force
Compressed the slothful Naiad of the Fens.
From such a mixture sprung, this fitful pest
With feverish blasts subdues the sickening land:
Cold tremors come, with mighty love of rest,
Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and pains
That sting the burdened brows, fatigue the loins,
And rack the joints and every torpid limb;
Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweats
O’erflow: a short relief from former ills.

1. Taste: An Epistle to a Young Critic
2. Of Benevolence: An Epistle to Eumenes
3. Now Summer with Her Wanton Court Is Gone
4. Progne’s Dream
5. Full Many a Fiend Did Haunt This House of Rest

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