I went to a modern doctor to learn what it was was wrong.
I'd lately been off my fodder, and life was no more a song.
He felt of my pulse as they all do, he gazed at my outstretched tongue;
He took off my coat and weskit and harked at each wheezing lung.
He fed me a small glass penstalk with figures upon the side,
And this was his final verdict when all of my marks he'd spied:

"Do you eat fried eggs? Then quit it.
You don't? Then hurry and eat 'em,
Along with some hay that was cut in May—
There are no other foods to beat 'em.
Do you walk? Then stop instanter—
For exercise will not do
For people with whom it doesn't agree—
And this is the rule for you:
Just quit whatever you do do
And begin whatever you don't;
For what you don't do may agree with you
As whatever you do do don't."

Yea, thus saith the modern doctor, "Tradition be double durned!
What the oldsters knew was nothing compared to the things we've learned.
There's nothing in this or that thing that's certain in every case
Any more than a single bonnet's becoming to every face.
It's all in the diagnosis that tells us the patient's fix—
The modern who knows his business is up to a host of tricks.

Do you eat roast pork? Then stop it.
You don't? Then get after it quickly.
For the long-eared ass gives the laugh to grass
And delights in the weed that's prickly.
Do you sleep with the windows open?
Then batten them good and tight
And swallow the same old fetid air
Through all of the snoozesome night.
Just quit whatever you do do
And do whatever you don't;
For what you don't do may agree with you
As whatever you do do don't.

Cherry-lipt Adonis in his snowie shape,
    Might not compare with his pure ivorie white,
    On whose faire front a poet’s pen may write,
Whose roseate red excels the crimson grape,
His love-enticing delicate soft limbs,
    Are rarely fram’d t’intrap poore gazine eies:
    His cheeks, the lillie and carnation dies,
With lovely tincture which Apollo’s dims.
His lips ripe strawberries in nectar wet,
    His mouth a Hive, his tongue a hony-combe,
    Where Muses (like bees) make their mansion.
His teeth pure pearle in blushing correll set.
    Oh how can such a body sinne-procuring,
    Be slow to love, and quicke to hate, enduring?