No Medicine to Mirth

Tis mirth that fills the veins with blood,
More than wine, or sleep, or food;
Let each man keep his heart at ease;
No man dies of that disease.

He that would his body keep
From diseases, must not weep;
But whoever laughs and sings,
Never he his body brings
Into fevers, gouts, or rheums,
Or lingeringly his lungs consumes;
Or meets with aches in his bone,
Or catarrhs, or griping stone:
But contented lives for aye;
The more he laughs, the more he may.