Leave the beds to get fresh
On the close crowded floor
Let the wind sweep right through—
Open window and door
The bad air will rush out
As the good air comes in,
Just as goodness is stronger
And better than sin.
Do this, it's soon done,
In the fresh morning air,
It will lighten your labour
And lessen your care
You are weary—no wonder,
There's weight and there's gloom
Hanging heavily round
In each over full room.
Be sure all the trouble
Is profit and gain
For there's head ache and heart-ache,
And fever and pain
Hovering round, settling down
In the closeness and heat
Let the wind sweep right through
Till the air's fresh and sweet,
And more cheerful you'll feel
Through the toil of the day,
More refreshed you'll awake
When the night's paved away" [Footnote: Household Verses on
Health and Happiness London. Jarrold and Sons. Every mother
should read these Verses.]
Plants and flowers ought not to be allowed to remain in a chamber at night. Experiments have proved that plants and flowers take up, in the day-time, carbonic acid gas (the refuse of respiration), and give off oxygen (a gas so necessary and beneficial to health), but give out, in the night season, a poisonous exhalation.
Early rising cannot be too strongly insisted upon; nothing is more conducive to health and thus to long life. A youth is frequently allowed to spend the early part of the morning in bed, breathing the impure atmosphere of a bedroom, when he should be up and about, inhaling the balmy and health-giving breezes of the morning:—
"Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed: The breath of night's destructive to the hue Of ev'ry flower that blows. Go to the field, And ask the humble daisy why it sleeps Soon as the sun departs? Why close the eyes Of blossoms infinite long ere the moon Her oriental veil puts off? Think why, Nor let the sweetest blossom Nature boasts Be thus exposed to night's unkindly damp. Well may it droop, and all its freshness lose, Compell'd to taste the rank and pois'nous steam Of midnight theatre and morning ball Gire to repose the solemn hour she claims; And from the forehead of the morning steal The sweet occasion. Oh! there is a charm Which morning has, that gives the brow of age, a smack of youth, and makes the lip of youth Shed perfume exquisite. Expect it not Ye who till noon upon a down-bed lie, Indulging feverish sleep."—Hurdis.