Throw open the window and fasten it there!
Fling the curtain aside and the blind,
And give a free entrance to heaven's pure air,
'Tis the life and health of mankind.
Behold that dull concourse in yonder closed space,
With visages sluggish and red;
How calmly they sit, each one in his place,
While their lungs with poison are fed.
What makes the grave deacon so drowsy at church?
The scholar so dull in his class?
Dry sermons!--dry studies!--the brain's in the lurch,
For want of pure oxygen gas.
Come, 'rouse, from your stupor, before it's too late,
And do not yourself so abuse--
To sit all day with your feet on the grate;
No wonder you're getting the "blues!"
Are you fond of coughs, colds, dyspepsia and rheums?
Of headaches, and fevers and chills?
Of bitters, hot-drops, and medicine fumes,
And bleeding, and blisters and pills?
Then shut yourself up like a monk in his cave,
Till nature grows weary and sad,
And imagine yourself on the brink of the grave.
Where nothing is cheerful and glad.
Be sure when you sleep, that all is shut out:
Place, too, a warm brick to your feet--
Wrap a bandage of flannel your neck quite about
And cover your head with the sheet.
But would you avoid the dark gloom of disease?
Then haste to the fresh open air,
Where your cheek may kindly be tanned by its breeze;
'Twill make you well, happy and fair.
O, prize not this lightly, so precious a thing;
'Tis laden with gladness and wealth--
The richest of blessings that heaven can bring,
The bright panacea of health.
Then open the window, and fasten it there!
Fling the curtain aside and the blind.
And give a free entrance to heaven's pure air,
'Tis light, life, and joy to mankind.