University of Virginia Library

II. VOL. II.

THE AMYNTAS OF TASSO.

[Ye, who your minds from pageantry withdraw]

Ye, who your minds from pageantry withdraw,
And love to study nature's simple law;
Hither, ye few, your chaste attention bring;
Here is the humble cot, the chrystal spring:
The shepherd's flock, and fragrant bower are here,
And all the beauties of the varied year.
Here you may rove o'er vernal hill, and plain;
Here the coy nymph you find, and bleeding swain:
Here is displayed life's patriarchal hue;
Arcadia, here, in London you may view:
New Italy it's ancient genius gives,
And mighty Maro in his Tasso lives.

AMYNTAS

THE PROLOGUE.

Cupid in a Shepherd's dress.

THE PERSONS.

• Cupid, in a Shepherd's Dress.
• Daphne, the Friend of Sylvia.
• Sylvia, loved by Amyntas.
• Amyntas, a Shepherd.
• Thyrsis, the Friend of Amyntas.
• A Satyr, in love with Sylvia.
• Nerina, a Shepherdess.
• Ergastus, a Shepherd.
• Elpinus, a Shepherd.
• A Chorus of Shepherds.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

DAPHNE and SYLVIA.
DAPHNE.
Wilt thou, then, Sylvia, waste the bloom of youth,
Rejecting, sullenly, the joys of love?
Say, shall a mother's tender, moving name,
Never be music to thy callous ear!
Can thy obdurate soul conceive no bliss,
To see thy sportive children round thee play?
Nay, humanize thy breast; put on the woman;
Nor be a rebel to the voice of nature.

SYLVIA.
Let other nymphs court the delights of love;
If love indeed has more delights than pains;
A hardy, Amazonian life be mine:
Let but my bow with happy negligence
Be slung, my quiver gracefully depend;
And I shall think my person well adorned.
Let me the timid hare, or stag pursue;
Let me the foremost brave the fiercer savage,
Urge the nice aim, and bring him to the ground;
And I shall never, Daphne, want employment
To keep the working mind enough in action.
Let other maids of a more languid frame,
Their souls enervate with destructive love.

DAPHNE.
Insipid pleasures! an unnatural life!
And if those rustic occupations please thee,
It is because thou hast not proved sublimer.
Thus to the world yet in its infant state,
Acorns and water were a sweet repast;
The food of animals in better times!
For Ceres gives us now her golden grain,
And wine exhilarates the heart of man.
Did but the happiness once reach thy soul,
Such as a heart loving and loved enjoys,
Thou wouldst repent, thou wouldst with sighs exclaim
—Alas! I've missed the road to Happiness!
The time is lost that is not passed in love!
How long I've lived a vegetable life,
How long I've wanted sentimental being!
Oh! my past time! how many lonely nights,
How many dull unsocial days I've wasted,
That might have been laid out on mutual love,
Which gains new zest, and rises on enjoyment!
Once more, refine thy breast; put on the woman,
Nor be a rebel to the voice of nature.
Life's flower will fade; regret may come too late.

SYLVIA.
When I repent, when I with sighs exclaim,
As thy luxurious fancy painteth me,
Retorted rivers to their springs shall flow;
The wolf shall fly the lamb, the hound the hare;
The bear shall quit the land, and seek the sea;
The dolphin flounce upon our towering Alps.

DAPHNE.
I know the obstinate caprice of youth:
Such as my Sylvia is, was Daphne too.
My person, and my face, resembled thine.
Like thine my hair in flaxen ringlets waved.
My lips were just of that vermilion hue;
And on my cheeks the rose by fine degrees
Was in the lily lost. My passion then,
(The passion of an unexperienced maid)
Was but to tend the nets, to lime the twigs;
To whet the dart, and trace the timorous deer;
And if I met a shepherd's amorous eye,
I, savage-like, fixed mine upon the ground,
In shame, and rage; nay I despised my charms;
I hated them, because they pleased another.
As if it had been crime, and infamy,
To raise a passion wrought in human nature.
But how our sentiments are changed by time!
And what strange revolutions in us work
The service, merit, ardent supplications
Of an importunate and constant lover!
I was subdued, I own it; and the arms,
With which the victor gained, at length, his conquest,
Were, humble patience, sighs, and warm complaints,
Assisted by a female sympathy,
That pleads the cause of an impassioned lover.
The shades oracular of one short night
Threw more illumination on my mind,
Than many a hundred suns had done before.
I chid my folly, and with keen regret,
I said—the emblems which I long have worn
As thy disciple, Cynthia, now I quit—
I quit my bow, my passion for the chace;
Sport for untutored souls, but not for mine:
Love hath reclaimed me to my sex's joys.
With such humanity, I yet would hope,
Amyntas will his Sylvia's mind impress,
And mollify to love that heart of stone.
That heart by every title he should gain.
What more engaging youth adorns our hamlets?
Did ever shepherd burn with warmer love?
Say, do not rival nymphs bleed for Amyntas?
Yet can their flame, or can thy cruel scorn,
One moment turn his constant thoughts from thee;
Can'st thou pretend his birth discredits thine?
The fair Cydippe was thy mother; she
Claimed for her sire our noble river-god;
And is not he Silvanus' son, of whom
Pan is the father, the great god of shepherds?
Look in the mirror of the chrystal stream,
And Sylvia, thou must own that Amaryllis
Possesses beauty not less rare than thine.
Yet he rejects her smiles, and courts thy frowns.
Suppose (determined man can do strange things,
Heaven grant the supposition may be vain!)
That he, by thy disdain at length, enraged,
Turns all his thoughts on Amaryllis' charms;
And forms her, by imagination's power,
Into his object of connubial bliss?
What then will be thy mind? how will it bear
To think him irretrievably another's?
To think him happy in a rival's arms?
To see him give thee back thy haughty scorn?

SYLVIA.
Amyntas, as he pleases, may bestow
His heart, and person; 'tis not my concern.
He never can be mine: why should I then
Envy the fortune of the maid he chuses?
Nay—were he mine, I never could be his:
Affection shrinks; it withers on compulsion.

DAPHNE.
Whence your aversion to him?

SYLVIA.
From his love.

DAPHNE.
Effect inhuman from a cause benign!
Obdurate son sprung from a gentle sire!
Thou counteractest nature's general laws.
Do the mild sheep engender ravenous wolves?
Do snowy swans produce the sooty crow?
Sylvia, you either trifle with your friend,
Or with yourself, misled by female whim.

SYLVIA.
Amyntas's design makes me dislike him;
The man who proffers love I count my foe;
Under the specious word destruction lurks;
And while Amyntas passed his hours with me
In general converse, and in light amusement,
I own, my Daphne, I esteemed the swain.
But when he talked of serious, fatal love,
Disgust succeeded straight my friendship for him.

DAPHNE.
You quite mistake the object of your swain:
He means to make himself and Sylvia happy.

SYLVIA.
Daphne, I'll give no longer my attention
To such discourse; propose some other theme.

DAPHNE.
Thou supercilious girl! yet prithee tell me;
Art thou determined to accept no lover?

SYLVIA.
Whoe'er should make the proffer, I'd reject him;
I'd deem him a betrayer; one who lay
In artful, flowery ambush for my honour.
Such you call lovers; I call deadly foes.

DAPHNE.
The mild creation contradicts thy spleen.
Yonder the sheep are grazing, harmless race!
And if we knew not their innoxious life,
Their very bleat bespeaks their innocence.
Say, does the ram conspire against his ewe;
Does his breast harbour any black design?
The lordly bull, so dreadful in his wrath,
Whose roar, and levelled head, and pawing hoof,
Wither the stoutest mortal with affright,
Is to his heifer mild; to her he shows
No rougher treatment than his clumsy love.
Dost thou imagine that the faithful turtle
Intends hostility against his mate?
The constant pair seek a sequestered shade,
Far from the noise, the violence of man:
There do they perch, and in the soft caress,
And tender dialogue they pass the day.
Their voice announces their pathetic souls,
Their souls pathetic, breathing nought but love.
And while they coo, the corresponding woods,
The rugged rocks, seem to admire their flame.
Canst thou suppose the spring, the smiling spring,
When love diffuses all his genial influence,
A season that produces gloomy passions?
Now the gay period reigns; mark it's effects.
Observe the dove, seated on yonder elm;
With soothing murmur how he bills his mate.
Hark the sweet nightingale on yonder spray;
What harmony distends his little throat!
'Tis love's warm imagery that fires his breast;
And pours his raptured sentiments in musick.
The shifting scenes of love are all before him;
I hear it in the changes of his voice.
Listen, my Sylvia—now in short, timid accents,
He supplicates his mistress—but in vain;
Now he laments, and as he feels her rigour,
Breathes forth a lengthened, liquid, dying note—
Oh! his complaint has won her:—he concludes
In joyful flourishes, in strains of triumph.
'Tis love that animates his varied song;
He says in every note—“I love, I love.”
Even the dark adder, at this social season,
Intent on love, forgets his baleful poison:
The fierceness of the tiger is subdued,
The lordly lion, king of beasts is humbled.
Why on the brute creation need I dwell?
The mighty power of love pervades the trees.
See how the amorous vines embrace their elms;
Beeches for beeches, rugged oaks for oaks
Express their inclination by their dress,
Their whispering rustle, and consenting wave.
Wouldst thou then rank thyself below the plants,
Dead to the lively sentiments of love?
Shake off thy prejudice; put on the woman,
Nor be a rebel to the voice of nature.

SYLVIA.
Well, Daphne, when I hear the sighs of plants,
I frankly will consent to be a lover.

DAPHNE.
Sylvia, thy folly only can be equalled
By thy insensibility to love.
Dost thou then make advice, and argument
The ill-timed subject of insipid banter?
But go, thou foolish maid; the time will come
When thou in vain severely wilt repent
Thy inattention to my friendly lessons.
I speak not of that mortifying time
When thou shalt fly the mirror of the stream,
Where oft thy face thou viewest, and perhaps,
Unfeeling as thou art, dost oft admire it:
The time when thou shalt fly the limpid fountain,
Dreading to see the ruins of thy beauty,
The furrows of old age, thy withered hue,
Spoiled of the lily, and the rose, for ever;
The certain havock of life's cruel winter.
No, Sylvia, this is not the dreadful time,
Nor this the evil of which I forewarn thee;
'Tis common, and 'tis therefore not so galling.
Canst thou not recollect what sage Elpinus
Told, a few days ago, the fair Lycoris?—
Lycoris, who as deeply should imbibe
Soft passion from Elpinus' noble song
As he receives it from Lycoris' eye;
If mortals once could love by reason's laws.
Battus, and Thyrsis heard Elpinus tell it,
Both finished masters in the art of love.
He told it in Aurora's sacred cave,
Where, o'er the portal awfully is written,
“Be feet profane far from this hallowed place.”
He told us—and he said he had the truth
From the great bard, who sung of arms and love,
And dying left him his harmonious flute;
—That in the nether world there is a cave,
Gloomy and drear, where lazy Acheron
Sends forth sulphureous, pestilential vapour;
And in that cave, he said, ungrateful women
Would live eternally, by Heaven's decree,
In darkness, frantick grief, and Stygian anguish.
Sylvia, if you persist to steel your heart,
Expect a mansion in that dire abode.
Well do the wretches in another state,
Deserve to suffer unremitted torment,
Whom tears of misery never moved in this.

SYLVIA
What did Lycoris then; how did she answer
This strange denunciation?

DAPHNE.
Art thou anxious
To know another's conduct?—mend thy own.
She answered with her eyes.

SYLVIA.
I understand not that:
The eye is mute; how can it form an answer?

DAPHNE.
A novice thou to love's expressive language!
The soft and strong emotions of the soul
In magick beams are darted from the eye.
She smiled on her Elpinus with her eyes:
I marked them—these were their distinct expressions.
“Dear swain, my person, and my heart are thine.
Implore the deities of love no more.
No further testimony can I give thee
Of my affection now; this is enough
For modest nymph to give, chaste swain to take.
Enough thou wilt esteem it, if Elpinus
Honest as bright believes Lycoris' eyes;
If they deserve at once his faith and love.”

SYLVIA.
What reason had he to suspect their truth?

DAPHNE.
What? didst thou never hear what Thyrsis wrote
In love's dehrium, on Lycoris' eyes?
When the poor shepherd, stung to amorous frenzy,
Roamed through the lonely woods, to feed his passion,
Object of pity to the nymphs, and swains:
And so extravagant his passion was,
Their pity was accompanied with mirth
But his warm verse was not ridiculous.
I read the lines myself, which he had written
On many a tree; and with the trees they grew.
“Destructive eyes, false mirrors of the heart!
I, to my sorrow know the lies you've told me:
Yet what avails it me to know your lies,
If I still wish to view the basilisk,
And catch fresh ruin from your fatal rays?”

SYLVIA.
Daphne, I'm wasting here my precious time,
Harangued, in vain, by thy luxurious fancy.
I had forgotten that in Elicetum
A numerous hunting party meets to-day.
Thither I go; but in the wonted stream
First will I bathe, and cleanse me from the dust
Of yesterday; 'twas a fatiguing chace;
The stag our game, which I, with warm career
Pursued, the foremost; overtook, and killed.
Daphne farewell.

DAPHNE.
Sylvia farewell, but know
What to our gentle sex we women owe;
Know, that the boisterous pleasure of the chace
Is not the province of the female race.
It brutifies the temper of a man;
How distant is it then from woman's plan!
Our spirits ought to keep a tender strain,
Refine delight, and blunt the sting of pain.
Abjure the chace; be present to thy mind,
The sphere by heaven to rural charms assigned.—
Let rough barbarians bound o'er hill and plain,
Be ours the task to bless the humble swain;
The sameness of his station to beguile,
Crown his gay hours, and make his labour smile:
And when the business of the day is done,
When he hies homeward with the setting sun,
To give him sweet ideas of his cot,
And make him triumph in his peaceful lot;
To make him there expect domestick joy,
The wife assiduous, and the prattling boy;
To draw Elysium on our state below,
And bliss which wealth and grandeur never know.

SCENE II.

Amyntas, and Thyrsis.
AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, the gentle streams have not denied
Their sympathetick murmur to my woes.
I've known the trees, with softly-trembling leaves,
Whisper their pity to my warm complaint:
The rocks have softened as I poured my lay.
Harder than rocks I find my cruel fair:
Her breast will ne'er admit my moving tale.
Doth she deserve the tender name of woman?
No; she hath quite renounced her feeling sex,
The delicate emotions of her nature;
Since she denies her lover that compassion
Which even the world inanimate vouchsafes him.

THYRSIS.
'Tis the lamb's joy to crop the tender herb;
The wolf's regale is to devour the lamb;
But more inexorable love delights
In the fell homage of a harsher tribute;
Sighs are his incense; his libation, tears.

AMYNTAS.
Alas! my Thyrsis, love is surely sated
With my reiterated sighs, and tears:
The savage god is thirsting for my blood;
And soon it shall be shed; soon shall stern Cupid,
With sterner Sylvia, view my deadly wound,
And with their eyes enjoy life's crimson flood,
My spreading paleness, and my last convulsions.

THYRSIS.
You rave, Amyntas; moderate your passion
With reason; you may find another mistress,
If you're despised by this inhuman fair one.

AMYNTAS.
Another mistress find!—I've lost myself:
When grim despair with his chill hand hath seized us,
And broken nature's elasticity,
We look around for solace, but in vain.

THYRSIS.
Weak-hearted man!—drive off the fiend despair:
Firm perseverance yet may gain the nymph.
What will not time, and perseverance do!
The keen progression of the mind of man
Changes in every age the face of nature:
Nought is too wondrous for it's force, and art;
It tames the lions, and Hyrcanian tygers.

AMYNTAS.
But my distress will not admit delay:
I long for shelter in the quiet grave.

THYRSIS.
You will not need to brook a long delay;
Woman is angry soon, and soon appeased;
A childish, volatile, capricious thing;
By trifling motives different ways inclined,
As is the nodding ear of golden Ceres,
Or limber osier by the lightest air.
But sure Amyntas might acquaint his Thyrsis
With the whole secret of his hapless passion.
You have to me lamented oft your flame;
But you have never yet told me it's object.
It is a trust you may repose in me,
A trust to friendship, and the Muses due.
Together oft we cultivate the Muses,
And with their scenes enrich our simple life:
Oft do the Muses on a beauteous eve,
The sky serene, and drowsy nature hushed,
We tending homewards through the silent vale,
Vouchsafe celestial sounds to rural ears;
And raise our humble minds above their stretch,
With such warm fancy, such ethereal forms,
As 'scape the vulgar intellectual eye.
These views, Amyntas, should enlarge thy soul,
Pardon the kind rebuke, and make thee know
Where thou may'st lodge it in full confidence.
Why need I launch into the praise of friendship?
Friendship the best support of wretched man!
Which gives us, when our life is painful to us,
A sweet existence in another's being!
Revere, O swain, the sacred rights of friendship.

AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, I'll tell without reserve to thee,
What oft I've told to streams, and trees, and mountains,
But never yet revealed to human ear.
For as my death approaches, I would wish
To leave my story with my faithful friend,
That he at proper junctures might relate it,
And carve it on some venerable beech,
Under whose boughs I have my sepulture;
A useful monument to future swains.
Then may the cruel fair-one tread my ashes;
Then may she say, with barbarous exultation,
“Thus have my powerful charms completely triumphed.”
Then may her triumph be increased, to find
My tale is known to all the neighbouring swains,
Is known to many a traveller who by chance
Bends to the melancholy spot his way.
And, Thyrsis, may not I presume (alas!
I hope the honour of too great a boon)
That Sylvia, one day, will repent her harshness;
Will feel her heart melt with too late compassion;
Will love my memory, and by oft comparing
Amyntas living with Amyntas dead,
Comparison which kills the worst resentments,
Break into some such tender exclamation—
“Oh! were he yet on earth; and were he mine!”
Now, Thyrsis, hear.

THYRSIS.
Proceed; I mark thee well;
Haply for better purpose than thou weenest.

AMYNTAS.
When yet I was a boy; when yet my hand
Could hardly reach to seize the luscious fig,
Depending from it's fragrant lowly tree,
I formed an intimacy with a maid,
The fairest sure, whose flowing, golden tresses
Were ever kissed by Zephyr's wanton breeze.
The daughter of Cydippe is the fair,
Her father is Montanus, rich in herds;
Sylvia her name: she was my young companion;
And she at present is my amorous theme.
Sylvia, the pride of woods, the flame of shepherds!
Amyntas with his Sylvia lived some time,
Exchanging such a pure, delightful friendship,
That the harmonious hearts of two chaste turtles
Did never beat in truer unison.
Near to each other were our cottages;
But nearer to each other were our souls;
Time had impressed us both with equal years;
But nature with more equal sentiments.
Nets was I wont to spread with her, the ambush
To catch the feathered tribe, and scaly fry;
With her I always urged the vigorous chace:
Our sport was common; common was our spoil.
But while I thus waged war with animals,
And made fell havock of the brute creation,
Love by degrees stealing me from myself,
Insensibly subdued the mighty hunter.
I found a gradual, and a new affection
Spring in my breast, as grows the blade of grass,
Advancing by degrees from source unknown.
This unaccountable augmenting passion
Made me unhappy but in Sylvia's presence;
And while I gazed upon her, from her eyes
I drank a strange, intoxicating pleasure,
Which, though transporting, left a sting behind it.
I often sighed, and wondered why I sighed;
I was a lover, ignorant of love.
Well did I know it's nature in the end:
I'll tell the how:—Thyrsis attend my story.

THYRSIS.
You paint so strongly that I must attend it.

AMYNTAS.
One day beneath the beech's spreading shade,
Phillis and Sylvia sate, and I sate with them.
When lo, a bee, that hummed around the mead,
Gathering her sweets, fastened on Phillis' cheek,
Bit it with eagerness, and sucked its balm—
On Phillis' cheek, vermilion as the rose;
And haply by its view deceived, the insect,
Mistook it for some rich, ambrosial flower.
Phillis, forthwith, impatient of the puncture,
Expressed her pain in girlish lamentation.
But her consoling Sylvia thus addressed her:
“Grieve not, my Phillis; I'll remove thy smart;
The intruder's little wound I soon will heal
By application of a verbal charm.
I learned the secret from the sage Aresia;
And in return a beauteous horn I gave her,
Which to the chace I bore (thou oft hast seen it)
Ivory the substance was; 'twas set in gold.”
She spoke; and straight approached her beauteous lips,
Her lips nectareous to the wounded cheek
Of Phillis, pressed them to the injured part;
And in sweet accent murmured certain verses;
But murmured them so low I could not hear them.
Astonishing effect! immediately,
The pain, and bite that caused it, were removed;
Whether by virtue of the magick words,
Or rather, as I ween, by Sylvia's lips,
Whose touch, with more than Esculapian power,
Must balsam give to body, and to soul.
I, who till then no higher bliss desired
Than to enjoy the golden privilege
Of viewing the mild lustre of her eyes,
Or hearing the sweet musick of her tongue,
Far sweeter than the murmuring rivulet,
Whose gliding stream the pebbles gently break;
More soothing than the breath of vernal Zephyr,
In whisper stealing through the trembling leaves:
I from that moment felt a new desire,
Wishing that Sylvia's lips, and mine might meet:
And on a sudden, from a rustic boy,
Grown to a politician (strange! how love
Whets the blunt intellect!) I soon bethought me
Of a sly stratagem to gain my purpose.
An angry bee, enraged, as I pretended,
Because with heedless hand I drove it from me,
Had on my lip a thrilling wound inflicted.
Keen agony I feigned, and sore lamented;
And with a supplicating aspect begged
The favour, which my tongue durst not petition.
The simple Sylvia took compassion on me,
And offered me her efficacious cure.
But when I felt her rosy mouth touch mine,
Heavens! how it penetrated all my frame!
It smote each nerve with instantaneous fire,
Deepened my real wound, and made it mortal.
Assiduous bee never such honey sipped,
As I from Sylvia's blooming lips inhaled,
More aromatic than the new-blown rose.
And yet the kiss was languid; maiden instinct
Prevented Sylvia from impressing it;
And I with awe was overwhelmed, and durst not
Complete it with the energy of love.
That memorable kiss conveyed such sweets,
Though mixed with lurking poison to my heart,
That I kept up the fraud; and oft told Sylvia,
Her magick had not its effect on me;
And she repeated oft the pleasing charm.
Augmenting daily from that fatal time,
My passion grew at length so violent,
And so impatient my anxiety,
They tore my breast, and forced me to reveal them.
Once when the shepherds, and the nymphs were met,
For evening relaxation, at the pastime,
In which each member of the merry circle
Whispers his secret in his neighbour's ear;
My cruel fair was seated next to me.
I whispered her,—“Sylvia, I burn for thee;
“Favour thy lover's passion, or he dies.”
She to the ground her beauteous face declined,
Suffused with sudden red, the mark of shame,
And anger: silence was her sole rejoinder;
It was a sullen, agitated silence,
On which severe reproofs, and dreadful threats
Sate lowering. She arose, and left the play:
And hath not from that time vouchsafed to see me.
Now three times hath the sweating reaper shorn
From the luxuriant fields the golden grain;
Three times departing autumn hath announced
With falling leaves the bleak approach of winter,
While to appease that unforgiving maid,
Each art, each effort have I tried, but death.
And willingly I'd die, would but my death
Either excite her pleasure, or her grief—
But which emotion should I wish to raise?
'Twould be but grateful in her to embalm
The memory of her constant swain with grief.
And yet I would not wish with sharp sensation
To sting, and harrass her soft, snowy breast;
Or dim, with tears, the lustre of her eye.

THYRSIS.
And is it possible that if she heard
These generous words she would not pity thee;
And pity is an avenue to love.

AMYNTAS.
I dare not hope she would; for now her ear
Is as insensible to my complaint
As is the adder's to the charms of musick.

THYRSIS.
Fear not, Amyntas; I will undertake
To soften thy obdurate fair-one's rigour,
And make her more propitious to thy suit.

AMYNTAS.
Alas! my friend, too well I know her nature;
Thy kind endeavours nothing will avail:
Or if they should obtain a patient ear,
Her heart will still be inaccessible.

THYRSIS
Why art thou thus a prey to black despair?

AMYNTAS.
I have but too just reason to despair,
For Mopsus prophesied my hapless love:
Mopsus, endowed with more than mortal wisdom;
The language of the birds to him is known,
He knows the latent powers of plants, and springs.

THYRSIS.
What Mopsus dost thou mean? that artful Mopsus,
Whose tongue is honeyed with endearing words;
On whose false lips sits an inviting smile;
Mopsus, who cloaks the murderer with the friend?
For all the idle, dismal prophecies,
With which he terrifies unwary minds,
Uttering them with authoritative air,
As if they carried fate, are ne'er fulfilled.
Experience warrants me to paint him thus:
Therefore again I say, be of good courage;
For I believe your flame will be successful,
From his malicious, and blind augury.

AMYNTAS.
If by experience, Thyrsis, thou art taught
To give no credit to his prophecies,
An instance would afford me consolation.

THYRSIS.
A memorable instance will I give thee.
When fortune brought me to our peaceful shades,
I soon became acquainted with this Mopsus;
And then I judged him such as thou hast thought him,
Wise, and sincere, and friendly I believed him.
It so fell out, that I was called by business,
And urged by rustick curiosity,
To visit that great city where the Po,
Immortalized by bards, his tribute pours.
Before I undertook this enterprize,
High enterprize to simple, fearful swain,
To Mopsus I unfolded my design,
As to a faithful counsellor, and prophet.
He shook his head, and said—Beware, my son,
And tread with cautious step the dangerous ground,
Whither thou tendest: 'tis beset with snares.
The merchant there will lie in wait for thee;
Tempt thee with the false lustre of his ware,
Rob thee with smiles of generosity,
With all the paltry eloquence of trade,
And tell a thousand lies to gain a farthing.
The courtier, too depraved in soul to feel
Humane enjoyment at the sight of nature,
Will make a sport of thee, thy coarse attire,
Thy simple manners, thy unpolished language,
Thy happy ignorance of perverted life;
His mean servility, his rampant bow,
His trembling at a creature like himself,
His childish passions, his ideal wants,
Ten thousand times more worthy to be laughed at.
Guide then thy steps, my son, with circumspection:
Avoid the lumber, the parade of grandeur;
Let not thy mind be dazzled with the glare.
Fly from the Tyrian glow that mocks the eye;
The plume as airy as the head that wears it;
The lying blazon, falsely speaking worth;
The monument of long-departed greatness.
Fly all the vain idolaters of fashion;
Their souls as trifling as the modes they worship.
But above all, withhold thy prudent step
From the grand magazine of earthly folly.
What place is that, said I?—There, he replied,
Female magicians dwell; who with false sights
Delude the eye, and with false sounds the ear.
Their diamond is rude stone, their gold but brass:
Their silver coffers full of orient treasure,
Are wicker baskets, and replete with trash.
With art of sorcery the walls are formed;
Strangely they speak, and answer to the speaker;
Not giving back the mutilated word,
As echo answers in the rural shade;
But fully they return it; and they add,
(Surprizing to relate!) words of their own.
The tables, and the chairs, the beds, and curtains,
All implements of that inchanted palace,
Articulate, and speak with restless tongue.
There, lies, in shape of little playful children,
Hover, and sport, inspiring wicked tales.
Nay; if a person, speechless from the womb,
Should chance to enter there, his organ straight
Would by the devilish magick be unloosed;
Spite of himself, he'd in a moment catch
The voluble infection of the place.
But these are the least evils thou may'st meet:
Thou may'st of human figure be deprived;
May'st pass into a melancholy willow,
Into a plaintive stream, or sighing flame.
Such was the lesson gloomy Mopsus gave me.
I to the city went, not without fear,
My fancy haunted by his dreadful picture,
Which better information soon effaced.
Kind Providence my wandering steps conducted
To the blest mansion of terrestrial sweets,
Which he had drawn in such alarming colours.
Forth from the palace issued heavenly musick,
The voice of swains, melodious nymphs, and Sirens;
And such a tide of captivating bliss,
That for a while I stood, absorbed in wonder.
A goodly person at the door I spied,
He seemed the guardian of the paradise;
Graceful his shape, and noble was his mien:
I knew not from his ensigns, what to deem him,
A warriour brave, or courtly cavalier.
With face benign, tempering his dignity,
Accosting me, he begged that I would enter,
Survey the mansion, and partake it's pleasures.
Thus he, among the first in rank and splendor,
Was pleased to honour an ignoble swain.
Enter I did—but heavens! what sights I saw!
I saw musicians with Orphean finger
Striking the lyre: a company I saw
Of heavenly goddesses, and beauteous nymphs;
Some in luxuriant, airy dress; their hair,
And face uncumbered with fantastick mode;
Bright as Aurora, harbinger of day,
Diffusing virgin light, and pearly dew.
Apollo and the Muses there I saw,
With heavenly sounds enchanting mortal ear;
Raising the coldest hearer to a poet,
And opening all the sentimental world.
Amongst the Muses was Elpinus seated,
Elpinus high in fame amongst our swains.
With such pervading, and parental eye
Omniscient Heaven the worthy man surveys,
In the sequestered shade and humble garb;
And raises to such unexpected honour
The modest friend of virtue, and the Muse.
Spurning my rustick diffidence, to think
The fortune of Elpinus might be mine,
And waked to rapture I had never known,
My fancy heated with surrounding objects,
I raised my voice, and sung of war and heroes,
My former unaspiring themes disdaining,
The shepherds humble, and unpolished lay.
And though it was my fate to seek again
These woods; yet still my pipe retains a part
Of the bold character which then I caught;
It sounds not weak, but with a martial tone,
And makes the astonished woods, and valleys ring.
The envious Mopsus heard my epic strain,
And viewed me with malign, bewitching eye:
With hoarseness I was smit; and, for a time,
I could not speak; the neighbouring shepherds thought
A wolf had seen me; but the wolf was he.
So much I've told thee, that thou may'st not fear
To have such fate as he predicted thee:
Instead of robbery and ridicule,
I, at the famous city, met with honours,
And I returned enriched with sacred genius.
Mopsus' heart is black; whence every object
Wears a grim hue to his distempered soul.
And though his warning in the main was just,
And holds too strongly in exalted life;
He was not seer enough to know the court
To which I went, was an exception to it.
In general, what he prophecies is false:
Hope then; and give his prophecy to thee,
A happy, and inverted explanation.

AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, thy words give comfort to my soul;
Be thou the generous guardian of my life.

THYRSIS.
I'll not neglect the charge, I'll urge thy interest:
Fail not to meet me here within an hour.
Mean while, the duties of a man revolve,
And steel thy bosom with the firm resolve,
Not to resign thyself a dupe to fear,
By giving scope to fancy's wild career.
For oh! Amyntas! when misguided man
Departs from reason's all-sufficient plan,
To happiness in vain presumes to tend,
By means that do not on himself depend;
Crosses attack him in a numerous train,
And all the family of moral pain.
Yet this but theory; I do not mean
From it's deep-rooted love thy heart to wean;
Love still must actuate the sequestered swain,
His highest pleasure, and acutest pain;
Or else a mere machine he'd draw his breath,
In dull indifference, in a living death.
But in thy breast let reason have her share;
A tempered passion gives a tempered care.
When reason's gentle government we quit,
Too warmly with an earthly object smit;
Blindly we're driven by passions furious sway,
The heddy mind is every trifle's play;
Each little circumstance our fear awakes,
Which reason in it's just proportion takes.
Thus does the shepherd, blest with vigorous eyes,
See objects in their proper form, and size:
But if distemper hath impaired his sight,
Bright Sol directs him with fallacious light;
He sees a robber in the rustling spray,
And for a wolf mistakes his faithful Tray.

CHORUS.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

The Satyr
alone.
Small is the bee, yet sorely doth it wound;
It shoots a cruel, agonizing sting.
Yet Love is less; 'tis imperceptible.
In charming, though diminutive retreats,
The little tyrant takes his deadly aim.
Oft does he lurk beneath an eye-brow's arch,
And there he kills us with the visual ray,
That animated passage of the soul:
Couched in a flowing lock of golden hair,
From that soft ambush oft the subtle urchin
Peeps out, and deals an unexpected death.
Oft doth he ply his arrows from a dimple;
And from that covert, seemingly the seat
Of smiles, and innocence he slyly plays
Destruction on the unwary, fond admirer.
I burn with love; it tingles through my frame;
The unrelenting deity hath emptied
His quiver on me, from fair Sylvia's eyes.
Oh cruel Love! yet still more cruel Sylvia!
A tongue oracular gave thee thy name;
For thou art truly sylvan: nay, the woods
Harbour not such a fell, remorseless brood
As thy inhuman bosom nourisheth.
The woods afford, under their verdant foliage,
Shelter to snakes, to lions, and to bears:
Thy snowy breast, whose mild, luxurious view
Invites to rapturous joy, and balmy peace,
Perfidiously conceals disdain, and hatred,
And hard inflexibility; those monsters,
More savage far than snakes, or bears, or lions.
These may be tamed by art, and blandishment;
But those we cannot win by gift, or prayer.
When I for thee, my amorous soul absorbed
In thy idea, cull the choicest flowers;
And offer them with love's humility,
Thou haughtily rejectest them; perhaps
Because thy cheeks excel their glowing hue.
When thy assiduous lover offers thee.
Pomona's boon, the mellow, fragrant apple,
The mellow, fragrant apple thou refusest;
Perhaps because thy bosom swells with fruit
More tempting, and more exquisitely poignant.
Alas! from me no tribute wilt thou take;
When to propitiate thee I climb the rock,
And of it's golden treasure rob the bee,
The golden treasure thou wilt not accept.
Disdainful nymph! perhaps because thy lip
Is moistened with a more ambrosial dew.
But if I'm poor, and cannot give thee aught,
But what thou hast thyself in more perfection,
I offer thee my person:—Scornful maid,
By what pretext refusest thou this tender?
I am not so unseemly, if aright
I viewed myself of late in Neptune's mirror,
When Æther was serene, and not a breeze
Curled the smooth bosom of the glassy deep.
My sanguine, hale complexion; my broad shoulders,
My brawny arms with sinews prominent,
My shaggy breast, and thighs thick-cloathed with hair,
Give me not to thee for a mortal stripling,
But prove the matchless vigour of a god.
What dost thou hope from languid, beardless boys
Who having nothing that deserves thy favour,
Nothing substantial, nothing efficacious,
Endeavour to promote their suit by trifles:
Their dress, and hair composed with childish foppery:
Mere females in appearance, and in strength.
Suppose now such a tricked-out paramour
Should o'er the mount, or through the wood attend thee,
And meet a hungry wolf, or grisly boar;
Say, for thy sake durst he oppose the savaged
No; soon he would be seized with pallid fear,
And soon the coward would desert his mistress;
Hurried away by ignominious flight.
I know I am not ugly; nor dost thou
Despise me for my person and my face—
No; 'tis because I'm poor—dire lust of gold!
The tyrant reigns with universal sway,
Is not confined to the rapacious city,
It reaches stiller life, it haunts the village,
It chases slumber from the peaceful cottage,
And spreads it's influence o'er the whole creation.
This would be justly named the age of gold:
For nought but gold avails; and without gold
Life stagnates; friendless, and deserted man
Dies of the frozen gripe of penury.
Even I, a god, feel poverty's effects.
Accursed be he who first set love to sale!
Cursed be his ashes! ne'er may nymph or swain
In passing, pray the gods for his quietus,
Or say—“Light lie the flowery turf on thee!”
But may the beating rains, and the rough winds,
And all the jarring elements of heaven,
With vengeful storm unherse the bones, and tear them
From earth's asylum; may the stranger's foot,
Flocks, and unwieldy herds, trample the rubbish.
Thou, base venality, the ugliest monster
Of all that land, or ocean e'er produced,
Didst first degrade the dignity of love;
That noble passion, which can only flourish
Enlivened by the smile of liberty.
It cannot bear the supercilious brow
Of stern restraint; whene'er the tyrant enters,
It flies indignant from the grim intruder.
But why these empty words?—befits it me
Thus to lament my unsuccessful passion?
Each being for it's use exerts the arms
Which nature gave; the stag avails himself
Of his swift feet; the lion with his paw,
Terror and death unsheathing, gripes his prey,
And scruples not to crush it; the fierce boar
With whetted tusk destroys; nay even weak woman,
So fearful in appearance, and so gentle,
Kills with a look, or with a graceful motion,
Whene'er she would extend her amorous empire.
These rightly act as nature hath impressed them.
And should I foolishly reject her bounty,
And let her providence lie dead in me?
No:—Since with strength resistless I'm endowed,
I will employ that strength; I will extort
The bliss which a capricious nymph denies me,
As the just recompence of ardent love.
A trusty goat-herd who for me observes
The secret haunts and practices of Sylvia,
Hath told me that it is her frequent custom,
Tired with the chace, to seek a silver fountain,
And there, unnoticed, as she thinks, to bathe
Her snowy limbs in the translucent stream.
I know the place; my vassal showed it me:
Thither will I repair, and midst the shrubs
And bushes lie concealed, and wait her coming.
First will I feast upon her naked charms;
Then, stung with love, and rage, rush out upon her.
How shall a tender maid my fierce attack
Baffle by opposition, or by flight?
What will they prove against my strength, and swiftness?
Her tears, her eloquence, inforced by beauty,
Shall nought avail; I'll rifle all her charms;
And after I will take more deep revenge.
This vengeful hand I'll fasten in her locks;
And with her blood I will distain the ground:
Her pride shall pay the forfeit of her life;
Her life the victim which my honour calls for:
A puny mortal hath despised a god.
For slighted tenderness is sure to find
Just vindication from a generous mind;
The bosom feels a new, destructive fire,
Which deadens pity, but inflames desire.

SCENE II.

Daphne, and Thyrsis.
DAPHNE.
Thyrsis, I've long perceived Amyntas' flame
For Sylvia; and heaven knows how oft
I've warmly pleaded for the hapless swain.
And I am ready with more earnestness
To urge his interest now, since you espouse it.
But trust me, I would rather undertake
To tame the playful steer, the bear, the tiger,
Than this same simple, foolish, beauteous girl,
Who will not know the charms she is endowed with,
The power, the bliss that heaven has lodged with woman;
Yet kills, with all her childish heedlessness;
Kills, though she hath not learned to take an aim.

THYRSIS.
Strange is her constitution—for thy sex
Are busied from their infancy to know
What dress, and manner best become their person,
And all the arts that steal away the soul,
Elaborate, and yet displayed with ease:
To know to give a meditated death,
Under the snare of trivial, airy pleasure;
To know the whole machinery of love—
To know what engines kill, what only wound;
What lenitives assuage the lover's pain;
What are the potent charms that bring him back
From Pluto's confines to the golden day;
From drooping nature to the bloom of health,
And all the sweets of fancy's paradise.

DAPHNE.
You paint a curious art; say who bestows it?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, thy question is a female wile;
Thou feignest ignorance to discover mine.
Who taught the birds their musick, and their flight?
Who taught the fish to swim, the ram to butt,
The peacock to unfurl his glistening train?

DAPHNE.
What is the name of this surprizing teacher?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, the name.

DAPHNE.
False, ridiculing tongue!

THYRSIS.
Reject not quite my strong hyperbole:
Thou an adept sufficient art in love,
In all its mystery, to erect a school,
And teach a thousand girls the pleasing system.
Indeed the school by Nature is precluded;
They have the science from her inspiration;
Yet nature owes a part to education;
The mother, and the nurse, improve her dictates;
Open, and throw them into ready practice.

DAPHNE.
Come; you're a phlegmatick, a gloomy reasoner.
I like not speculation; I will make
A female, but a pertinent transition,
And pass to woman's easy narrative.
To tell thee truth, I question much that Sylvia
Is in the tender art so unenlightened,
As from her words, and conduct she appears.
Her yesterday's behaviour caused my doubts.
I chanced to find her near the spacious meadow,
Adjacent to the city; in that meadow
Thou knowest there is a small peninsula,
Cloathed with a verdant turf, and gay with flowers;
'Tis almost by the large transparent lake
Surrounded. By this lake was Sylvia seated;
She stooped intently o'er the limpid mirror,
Admiring, as I thought, her image there.
She seemed consulting, too, the faithful water;
How with most grace she might collect her hair,
How best adorn it with the gifts of Flora,
Which on her lap in rich profusion lay.
She took by turns the lily, pink, and rose,
And to her cheeks and neck by turns applied them,
With vain comparison; a laugh succeeded
Of self-complacency, of female triumph,
Which might be thus translated into language.
“Ye vanquished flowers, where is your boasted hue?
Me nature hath suffused with brighter glow,
I have no need of you; but I will wear you,
Not for my ornament, but for your shame;
Not that your active aid may push my conquests,
Attract more notice from the swains, and pour
A fuller lustre on the wondering eye;
But that your beauties, drawing force no more,
From the soft verdure of your mother-earth,
Faded and sunk, may give relief to mine.”
But while she thus was busied in admiring
Her charms, and meditating future triumphs;
She accidentally turned round, and saw me.
She rose confused, let fall the flowers, and blushed.
I laughed at her confusion; and my laugh
Fluttered her more, and raised her deeper blushes.
But as her art already had disposed
Part of her hair, and part remained dishevelled;
I could observe her sometimes steal a look
To the clear water of sweet information,
And smile to see her half embellished figure:
For charms in negligence ne'er fail to please,
Admit an infinite variety; nay, seem
More free, and more expanded by disorder.
I heedfully remarked these circumstances;
Though at the time I seemed not to observe them.

THYRSIS.
By your account of Sylvia, my suspicions
Are verified; did I not shrewdly guess?

DAPHNE.
You did—but can it be that human kind
Had all this early craft in former days?
No—when I was myself of Sylvia's age,
I was a stranger quite to dark design;
Simply I thought, and simply spoke, and acted.
The world grows old; and growing old, grows worse:
The world collectively, like individuals,
Is chilled, and hardened by the hand of time;
Loses the genial mellowness of nature,
The vigorous flow of large philanthropy,
Contracted, shrivelled, and locked up in self.

THYRSIS.
Perhaps in earlier times the human form
Had not so much, within, the hungry wild beast;
Went not so much abroad in quest of prey.
Inhabitants of noisy capitals
Sought not so oft our rural shades to breathe in,
Cloyed with a multiplicity of pleasure,
Smiting the healthy minds of cottagers
With the contagion of distempered fancy.
Nor did our country-girls so often seek
The baleful atmosphere of publick life.
Different the practice of our modern times:
Man mixes universally with man;
Hence man is universally corrupted.
Life is disfigured; we but see the ruins
Of our original unblemished nature.—
Enough of this; say, canst thou not procure
An interview with Sylvia, for Amyntas,
Without a witness, or, at most with thee?

DAPHNE.
I know not; never did a simple girl
Affect a shyness so reserved as Sylvia's.

THYRSIS.
And never girl so shy as Sylvia found
A lover so respectful as Amyntas.

DAPHNE.
A lover too respectful, is a fool.
Tell him to quit the hardy trade of love,
Or lay aside that distant, timid homage.
He that would practise the true art of love,
Must quicken his respect with well timed courage.
Let him be bold; and if he wants a favour,
Solicit, importune; and if he finds
Solicitation, importunity,
Are feeble, ineffectual mediators;
Let him embrace a gay, unguarded moment,
To steal with dexterous theft the wished-for bliss.
And if his circumspection cannot steal it;
Let him risk all to win the golden prize,
And seize it with a gallant violence.
Women well know to wield their proper weapons;
Or women would be blanks in the creation:
It is not in their province to procure
Protection and respect from selfish man
By their strong influence in society.
They have no hold of the proud, lordly being,
Except the tender, silken bands of pleasure;
And if their tension is not nice, they break.
This tension is the politicks of love.
We must not give, the moment you demand,
Or we should nothing have worthy of giving.
Would you enjoy? the way to your enjoyment
Must not be plain; but you must climb and struggle
To reach the arduous pinnacle of bliss.
Great part of happiness precedes fruition,
And mingles with the labour of acquiring.
The trifling part the sensual organs give us,
Is gross, and animal, and soon grows vapid;
The finer part, which rises from the mind,
Is lasting, active, spirit all, and æther,
Worthy a being raised above the brutes.
In every nerve it beats, through every pore
It breathes, it's ardour buoys our mortal frame;
It purifies, it subtilizes matter,
And gives to man the pleasures of a god.
It cheers existence in whatever state;
Warms us on Caucasus, and on the line
It fans us with a cool Italian breeze.
We must not give the moment you demand,
Or we should dwindle in your estimation
From goddesses to despicable slaves.
No, we must grant with coyness, and reserve,
Not seemingly to gratify ourselves;
But as a stately empress would vouchsafe
Some signal favour to a trusty vassal.
Thus do we keep our gentle majesty.
Hence all the necessary tricks of love;
We fly, and wish our swain may overtake us:
When we refuse, we wish the thing requested
By art or force, may be extorted from us;
And when we struggle with a mock resistance,
We wish that our resistance may be baffled.
Thyrsis, to you I show, without reserve,
The whole economy of female love.
But have a care; repeat not what I've told you;
And above all let not your wanton satire
Lash, in keen verse, the government of women:
You know I can in verse return the charge;
Man for my satire is an ample field,
And I am too a favourite of the Muses.

THYRSIS.
How canst thou think that I would let a word
Escape this tongue, that would offend my friend?
But I conjure thee, by that time when love
Spoke his first language in those radiant eyes,
That thou wouldst plead Amyntas' cause, and try
To reconcile to life the dying swain.

DAPHNE.
Oh! what an adjuration thou hast thought of!
How couldst thou make me thus approximate
My past, for ever past, and present days!
My gay, my blooming spring, and withering autumn!
But say, how would you have me interpose?

THYRSIS.
I will not plan for you; be but resolved
To serve my friend, and you will find the means.

DAPHNE.
There let the matter rest: Sylvia, and I,
Such our agreement was, are soon to go
To Cynthia's fountain; where the plane-tree forms
O'er the clear element a quivering shade.
There the tired huntresses are often seated,
To catch the grateful coolness of the place.
Sylvia to-day in that retreat will bathe
Her snowy limbs in the translucent water.

THYRSIS.
What does this lead to?

DAPHNE.
What does it lead to, sayst thou?
Is not a word a lecture to the wise?

THYRSIS.
I understand you; but I fear he has not
Courage enough for amorous enterprize.

DAPHNE.
Then he should better brook his disappointments,
And wait with patience till his mistress woos him.

THYRSIS.
Such is the merit of my friend Amyntas,
That he almost deserves that condescension.

DAPHNE.
But let us wave Amyntas for the present:
Let me awhile speak to the heart of Thyrsis.
Hast thou with purpose stern, and unnatural,
Determined ne'er to taste the joys of love?
Thou hast not passed as yet the prime of life.
Sure thirty summers have not flushed that face;
And shouldst thou make thy fleeting, precious youth
An indolent, an unenjoying period?
For all life's other scenes, compared with love,
Are trifling, and unsatisfactory;
They're only children's unideal play;
Like it they actuate not, and feed the heart,
And spring it's vigour with a bolder tone:
Nothing but love deserves the name of pleasure.

THYRSIS.
He who on love rushes not prematurely,
Is not, for that, deserted by the God;
He is not galled with love's asperities;
And when it comes, it smoothly flows upon him.
He lounges not, but waits for an occasion;
Haply at last his prudence finds a maid
Whose heart, susceptible, and sympathetic,
In concord sweet revibrates to his own.
Thus does the wary connoisseur in love,
Taste all it's joys, and all it's pains elude;
He 'scapes the prickles of the flower; he crops
Nought but the sweets of that Arabian rose.

DAPHNE.
Man loves activity, and enterprize:
The sweet unseasoned with a dash of bitter
Is soon succeeded by satiety.

THYRSIS.
I rather would be satiate than oft stung
With an inordinate and painful craving.

DAPHNE.
Not surely if you have a high regale:
And if that high regale, when 'tis enjoyed,
Impresses an Elysium on the memory,
Raising the joy of every repetition.

THYRSIS.
But who possesses that celestial object,
With whom he still is pleased, who still is pleasing;
Who watches ever o'er her lover's bliss;
Conspires with all his sentiments of joy,
Jealous to send away none unfulfilled?

DAPHNE.
And pray what man can look for such a mate,
Unless he diligently tries to find her?

THYRSIS.
The acquisition is worth seeking for:
But oh! the search is dangerous; oft it brings us
Nought but the keenest anguish in return.
Thyrsis again will never be a lover,
Till he finds love an easier situation,
Exempted more from sighs, complaints, and tears:
Enough I've sighed; enough I have complained;
And therefore I have made a truce with love:
Rashly to plunge into the fatal passion,
I leave to confident, unpractised minds,
To minds just entering on a world of woe.

DAPHNE.
Why would you prematurely cease to love,
Before you've had your share of it's enjoyment?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, the large remainder of enjoyment,
Which yet the prime of manhood promises,
I rather would forego than pay it's price,
It's usual price, inestimable quiet.

DAPHNE.
Involuntary love may mock your plan;
May rise, and when he rises in the breast,
He will not easily be argued down.

THYRSIS.
I keep aloof, at distance from the tyrant.

DAPHNE.
Unthinking mortal! who is far from love?
All space he actuates, like almighty Jove;
Pervades each atom of the universe.

THYRSIS.
Who fears, and flies him, certainly escapes him.

DAPHNE.
Would you pretend to fly a winged god?

THYRSIS.
At first by Providence's kind decree,
Leaving it in our power to fly from ruin,
He meditates attack with feeble wing.
Short are the flights he takes, and near the ground.
He beats, and flutters, like a captive sparrow,
Which strives in vain to mount with shortened pinions,
The cruel pastime of some idle boy.
But if with love we trifle, and admit him
To hazardous familiarity,
Neglecting to repel his childish onset,
He soon gains strength, he soon becomes our master.
He haunts us waking, haunts us in our dreams;
With vigorous flight bursts through the cottage window:
If we seek shelter from his persecution
In the remotest corner of a forest,
We there elude not his pursuit; for there
With eagle-wing he overtakes his prey.

DAPHNE.
But commonly too late we see our danger;
We see it when in vain we would escape it;
When Cupid hath ensured his victory.

THYRSIS.
You speak of unexperienced, easy victims.

DAPHNE.
Well Thyrsis, much I would rejoice to see
Thy philosophick discipline subdued.
And I protest, since thou dost arrogate
The stag's velocity, and lynx's sight,
If love should take thee, unprepared, and wound thee,
I mean inflict a deep, tormenting wound,
And thou shouldst come to Daphne for assistance,
I would not stir my tongue, nor stir a finger,
To mitigate thy cruel destiny.
No, could a magick movement of my eye-brow,
Thy nymph propitiate to thy tender suit,
The magick eye-brow should not move to save thee.

THYRSIS.
What, Daphne, could you see me then expiring,
And not stretch out a friendly hand to help me?
But since you seem determined I shall love,
Deign you to be the object of my love.
Give me your hand; we from this day will vow
Only to live to make each other happy.

DAPHNE.
I know your proffer is but irony.
Yet much I question whether you deserve
So good a mistress as you'd find in me.
In general men are superficial fools;
Admiring but the surface of our worth.
An easy shape, fine face, and sparkling eye,
Are all that strike their gross imagination,
Impassive to superior mental beauty,

THYRSIS.
I was not jesting Daphne, but as you
Are mistress of the theory of woman,
You will, by rule, decline the first proposal.
But if you seriously reject my tender,
I will resolve to bid adieu to love.

DAPHNE.
Why shouldst thou, Thyrsis, bid adieu to love?
Thy happy circumstances love invites:
Love is of delicate and tender growth,
By life's inclemencies 'tis nipped and blighted.
To flourish in perfection, it demands
The fostering ray of warm prosperity.
You have been fortunate, you're blessed with affluence,
And affluence is the soil for love to spring on.

THYRSIS.
Daphne, a god bestowed this affluence on me;
For he shall ever be a god to me.
By all our swains he should be deemed a god.
'Tis he whose lowing herds and bleating flocks,
Are spread through Italy to either sea;
They're pampered on our most luxuriant plains,
And live more hardly on our Apennines.
When first my patron to his service took me.
He thus addressed his swain in words benign:
“Thyrsis, let others guard from wolves, and robbers
My well-fenced folds; let others to my servants
Justly dispense rewards and punishments;
Let others feed my flocks, and have the charge
Of milk, and wool, and all the rural stores:
Let finer objects fill thy tuneful mind,
And vacant be it's powers to sacred song.”
Whence it is meet I should employ my genius
On themes sublimer than terrestrial love;
And strive to celebrate in sounding strains
The ancestors of my divinity;
Whether my Phœbus, or my Jove to deem him,
I know not, for his attributes resemble
Both deities; a mighty master he,
A guardian of celestial poesy;
A friend, a benefactor of mankind.
Hence to our woods I oft commit the deeds
Of Cœlus, and of Saturn; and he deigns
With ear propitious to receive my verse;
Whether in simple Doric mode I chant it,
Or with the nobler powers of harmony.
Not that himself I e'er presume to sing;
The fittest homage he can have from me,
Is mute admiring reverence; yet his altar,
Shall oft be strewed with my devoted flowers;
And often there shall my religious incense
Exhale in fragrant odour to the skies.
And when this holy gratitude forsakes me,
All nature shall renounce it's present course:
The stag shall quit the lawns, and seek the sky;
Rivers shall backwards to their fountains flow,
Shall be transported from their native channels;
The Persian drink the Soane, the Gaul the Tigris.

DAPHNE.
Thyrsis, you mount: you grow enthusiastick;
You wander from the theme of your discourse.

THYRSIS.
This is our point; when to Diana's spring
You go with Sylvia, try to molify her,
Try to subdue her stubborn soul to love.
Meanwhile it shall be mine to school Amyntas,
And fit him for a gallant enterprize.
My task is no less difficult than yours.
Daphne, the time is precious; prithee, go.

DAPHNE.
I go; yet once again I must remind thee,
The theme of our discourse thou hast neglected.

THYRSIS.

SCENE III.

Amyntas and Thyrsis.
AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, I come to know my destiny.
And if thy kind endeavours nought avail
To soothe the fate of thy unhappy friend,
I am resolved to bleed in Sylvia's presence,
The cruel cause of all my tender woes;
She, who rejoices thus to see me wither,
Soul-smitten by the lightning of her eye;
My irremediable death will sure enjoy,
Will sure enjoy the last, decisive blow.

THYRSIS.
Amyntas, drop these idle lamentations;
They never gain a step: put on the man.
I bring thee tidings that should comfort thee.

AMYNTAS.
What are the tidings? Speak; I'm on the rack!
Art thou a messenger of life, or death?

THYRSIS.
A messenger of life, and happiness;
Provided thou hast firmness to procure them.
In short, to gain the blessings I announce,
Thou must assume a dauntless resolution.
Reflect on Providence's ways to man.
The goods best worth our acquisition are
The fruits of courage, toil, and perseverance.
These rugged avenues to life's first treasures,
Enhance our value of the great possessors,
Making their well-earned glory venerable.
If sacrilegiously they could be snatched
With hand profane, and yield to mere volition,
Then would the soul supine, by lavish nature
Stored with the seeds of flowery sentiment,
Wanton in vigorous, and immortal strains,
Without the necessary, happy labour;
And knaves exchanging vice for easy virtue,
Rise in a moment to divine perfection.
Love likewise must be brave, and persevering.

AMYNTAS.
Thy eloquence ill-timed bespeaks the danger
Extreme that I must undergo to win
My cruel fair; but out with it at once;
I'll meet it with a violence as great
As all it's horror can affront me with.

THYRSIS.
Suppose thy mistress in a lonely wood;
That lonely wood on every side hommed in
With precipices and mishapen rocks;
Those rocks resounding to the lion's roar,
Those rocks the dreadful haunts of prowling tigers;
Say, to redeem her thence couldst thou defy
The rock mishapen, and the prowling savage?

AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, I'd thither go, bold and secure,
With foot as fearless as when I betake me
To rural pastime on a festal day.

THYRSIS.
Suppose thy Sylvia was a prey to robbers,
To robbers armed and desperate: wouldst thou dare
The ruffians to attack for her deliverance?

AMYNTAS.
Would I attack them? Yes, with that assurance,
Yes, with that eagerness, with which the stag
His thirst appeases at the purling fountain.

THYRSIS.
Expect some greater proof; you must display
In warmer terms your amorous heroism.

AMYNTAS.
Thyrsis, I'd for my Sylvia cross the river,
When the relenting snow gorges its torrent,
In cataracts descending from the Alps;—
Thyrsis, I'd for my Sylvia tread the flame;
I'd go to Pluto's realms in quest of Sylvia.
Indeed no trial that: for Sylvia's presence
Would make grim Pluto and his kingdom smile;
Her eye would dissipate the gloom of hell,
It's anguish heal, and change it to Elysium.
Oh tell me quickly all I am to know!

THYRSIS.
Hear then—

AMYNTAS.
—But trifle not; tell it me briefly.

THYRSIS.
Sylvia awaits thee at Diana's fountain,
Alone, and naked; will the timorous lover,
Let slip the golden opportunity?

AMYNTAS.
What are the words that strike my ravished ear;
Does Sylvia wait for me alone, and naked?

THYRSIS.
Perhaps too Daphne may be there; but she
You know, with all her art assists your love.

AMYNTAS.
Does she await me naked, says my Thyrsis?

THYRSIS.
Naked, I say, she doth await thee—but—

AMYNTAS.
That cruel but, and hesitation kill me.

THYRSIS.
She knows not that you are to find her there.

AMYNTAS.
Oh! galling end of a delusive tale!
It turns all the preceding sweets to bitter!
Inhuman Thyrsis, how dost thou torment me!
Thou shouldst pour balm into my bleeding wound;
Instead of that thou woundest me afresh,
Causing my former wound to smart, and fester.
Art thou my friend, or hast thou human nature?
Thou seest me overwhelmed with misery;
My load of misery seems to be thy sport;
Instead of striving to alleviate it,
With barbarous hand thou pressest down the burden.

THYRSIS.
If thou art ruled by me thou wilt be happy.

AMYNTAS.
What is the counsel thou wouldst give me?—

THYRSIS.
Go;
Be bold; avail thyself of this occasion.

AMYNTAS.
Kind heaven forbid that I should e'er commit
Deliberate act that would offend my Sylvia!
I ne'er offended her but by my passion;
I could not blame myself for that; it was
Involuntary, irresistible:
Blame we the trembling, and obedient string,
That speaks, in musick, to the lyrist's finger?
Kind heaven forbid that I should e'er offend her,
By any action on myself depending.

THYRSIS.
Amyntas, answer me ingenuously:
Supposing thou couldst quit thy passion for her;
Tell me, that passion wouldst thou quit to please her?

AMYNTAS.
No, though I could, I would not cease to love her;
Love will not let me harbour such an image;
Oh! 'tis a cold, and bleak one! to my mind
It makes the universe a dreary waste.

THYRSIS.
Then you confess in spight of her you'd love her;
Though in your power it were to cease your passion?

AMYNTAS.
No—not in spight of her—yet I would love her—

THYRSIS.
But as the case is put, you own you'd love her
Against her will?

AMYNTAS.
Why—yes—against her will.

THYRSIS.
Why will you then refuse, against her will,
To show a hardiness, which though, at first,
It may displease her virgin-modesty,
In time may be thy powerful advocate,
Soften her breast with tender imagery,
And give thee love's complete reciprocation!

AMYNTAS.
I cannot answer thee; yet I'm inspired;
Even now I feel love speaking to my heart,
In torrents of tumultuous eloquence.
My struggling tongue more forcibly describes
The strong, and varied feelings of my soul
Than the most copious orator could paint them.
But thou art versed in all love's intricacies,
And use hath made the theme familiar to thee.

THYRSIS.
And will you then not go?

AMYNTAS.
Yes, I will go;
But whither thou wouldst have me go, I will not.

THYRSIS.
Whither, Amyntas, wilt thou go?

AMYNTAS.
To death;
If this is all thy friendship can effect,
To make my life wear a more chearful aspect.

THYRSIS.
And dost thou think that I effect so little?
Dost thou despise this opportunity?
Thou art a simple, poor, despairing lover.
Would Daphne have suggested this adventure,
Had she not seen a glimpse of Sylvia's heart,
Seen that it was disposed to favour thee?
'Tis probable she knows thy mistress loves thee,
But by her plighted word perhaps is bound
Not to reveal the secret of her friend.
Were it not for thy stature, I'd suppose
Thou just hadst left the cradle: dost thou wish
She would in terms express declare her passion?
But surely thou must know the declaration
Would ill agree with Sylvia's bashful nature.
What circumstance would more offend her pride,
Than if she knew you harboured such desire;
And yet you'd rather perish than offend her;
If she would rather that you should be happy
By artful theft, or bolder violence,
To you what difference is there how you win
Your happiness, provided you are happy?

AMYNTAS.
Who can assure me that my Sylvia wishes
I'd undertake this love's knight-errantry?

THYRSIS.
Thou inconsistent man!—Bewitching passion!
Thy fascination dwindles manly reason
To the low, captious fancy of a child!
Again I tell thee, love is kept alive
By dangers, and by difficulties;
Without their necessary animation,
It loses all it's spirit, it grows dead.
Sylvia in thought thou dreadest to offend;
And yet, thou torpid lover, thou wouldst have
Certain anticipation of success;
Which, if she knew thou hadst, it would, most justly,
Against thee raise her keenest indignation.
Consider, though futurity is doubtful,
Yet thou mayst prosper in thy enterprize:
If then thou mayst, go boldly, and atchieve it.
For thy success is hazarded as much
By dull inaction as by brave attempt.
And if, all thy endeavours nought availing.
To soften Sylvia's heart, thou needs must die;
Adorn thy death by some adventurous deed;
So shall the swains revere thy memory:
Timorous, or brave in love, thou canst but die;
Die bravely then; if thou embracest death
(And voluntary death bespeaks a mind
Of vigorous tone, and fit for great resolves)
Let it not, following tears, and puny whining,
Throw ridicule upon thy tragic story.
Thy silence tells me reason hath prevailed;
Her power thou feelest; own, and be convinced
That thou at length art foiled in argument;
A surer victory wilt thou gain in love.
Go fearless to thy nymph.

AMYNTAS.
Yet stay awhile.

THYRSIS.
Why stay awhile? the rapid wing of time
Stays not a moment.

AMYNTAS.
Let us yet consider
If I should execute this bold design,
And how I should conduct it.

THYRSIS.
As we go
We'll frame the measures for it's execution.
Since life's most eligible scenes contain,
With certain pleasure, their contingent pain;
The prudent man a steddy course will steer,
'Twixt rash presumption, and desponding fear:
Nothing is certain in our earthly state;
A seeming trifle may be big with fate.
But if we always are afraid to stir,
Lest from our aim by moving we should err;
If all our projects die of cold delay,
Like a fixed, withering plant, we pine away;
No solid satisfaction can we share,
Our life a series of inactive care.

CHORUS.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Thyrsis and Chorus.
THYRSIS.
Oh! cruel, fortune; Oh! inhuman Sylvia!
Oh! barbarous woman-kind! and thou dame Nature,
How negligently hast thou formed the sex!
How couldst thou spurn thy salutary laws,
And e'er give birth to such incongruous being?
Thou hast for them thy softest matter chosen,
And wrought it to enchanting elegance,
Bespeaking timid mildness, sweet compliance;
Yet, strange to tell! this perfect symmetry
Contains, within, a brood of savage passions:
Angels in body; but in soul they're demons!
Thou, kind preserver of each other species,
Hast tempted man to rush on his destruction!
My friend Amyntas sure hath slain himself.
I've diligently sought him where I left him,
And in the parts adjacent; but in vain;
He certainly hath done what oft he threatened.
I see some shepherds, I'll inquire of them;
They may perhaps give me some tidings of him.
Friends, tell me, have you lately seen Amyntas;
Or some news of him you perhaps have heard?

CHORUS.
Thyrsis, thou seemest in extreme confusion:
Thou breathest quick; art thou pursued, or chasing?
What is the cause of all this agitation?
Tell us, that, if we can, we may remove it.

THYRSIS.
I fear some evil hath befallen Amyntas:
Say, have you seen him?

CHORUS.
Since he left this place
Some time ago, with thee, we have not seen him:
But why art thou so fearful for Amyntas?

THYRSIS.
Because I fear he hath destroyed himself.

CHORUS
Destroyed himself! canst thou assign the cause?

THYRSIS.
The cause was hapless love, and fell despair.

CHORUS.
When they together rankle in the breast,
Two dreadful enemies are they to man.
But pray be more explicit in thy story.

THYRSIS.
Most ardently the shepherd loved a nymph;
And for his love that nymph returned disdain.

CHORUS.
Thy hints raise eager curiosity;
Wilt thou at large unfold this mournful tale?
This place is much frequented; some may pass,
Who in the interim may inform us of him:
Or possibly himself may come this way.

THYRSIS.
I'll willingly be more particular.
For such ingratitude should not escape
Without it's recompense of infamy.
Ingratitude! that bold, licentious monster,
That tramples on the tenderest rights of man!
The fiend stalks impudently in the sunshine;
It plumes itself on it's unpunished treason;
It is not hunted down by human laws;
Therefore the heart's tribunal should arraign it:
It calls, at least, for virtue's detestation;
And nature's organ should distinctly tell it:
It is the outcast of the great Creator.
Excuse my feelings for my injured friend;
I now leave passion, and take up narration.
Amyntas knew that Sylvia was to go
To bathe with Daphne at Diana's fountain.
He knew, alas! by me, and I had spurred
The timid swain to amorous enterprize.
Sore do I now repent my rash advice.
Thither he went, not led by inclination,
But by my importunity subdued.
He went reluctant, hesitating, fearful;
Nay he would have turned back, had it not been
For my remonstrances, and ridicule.
Soon as the fountain we approached, we heard
A piercing cry of female lamentation;
And Daphne we beheld a moment after,
Clapping her hands, frantic with grief, and terror;
Who soon as she perceived us, called aloud,
“Shepherds, your help; a monster forces Sylvia.”
The fond Amyntas, on the dreadful notice,
Sprung, like an arrow, to the maid's assistance,
And I, with all my swiftness, followed him.
A sight we saw, shocking to generous natures:
We saw the fair Sylvia fastened to a tree,
Naked, and bound with her luxuriant hair:
Her hair with many a knot the nymph confined.
Her zone, the guardian of her virgin bosom,
Was now an implement of violence;
And roughly manacled her lily-hands.
The tree's young shoots fettered her tender limbs.
This was not all; we saw before her standing
An ugly Satyr; who had just completed
His preparation of the beauteous victim.
Much the fair captive struggled; but in vain;
What could such weakness do against such strength!
Amyntas had a dart with which he flew,
Fierce as a hungry lion, to the Satyr:
I snatched up stones to fight the sylvan ruffian;
Who, seeing our enraged resistance, flew,
And to the bosom of the wood betook him.
Amyntas now had time to think of Sylvia.
And first an amorous look he stole (what shepherd
In such a case could amorous look refrain?)
To which a smooth and snowy frame invited;
Yet the respect attending sacred virtue,
However poor, and naked in externals,
Chastised the ardour of the lover's eye.
A burning crimson overspread her face,
The flame of violated modesty.
Advancing towards her with gentle pace,
By steps too hasty fearing to offend her,
He thus in humble suit accosted her:
“Oh! Sylvia think not my respectful hand
Presumptuous, if it now comes near thy body:
For near thee it must come to set thee free;
It trembles at the delicate approach.
And Oh! abate of thy severity;
And grudge me not the happiness which fortune,
So cruel hitherto, at length vouchsafes me.”

CHORUS.
How did these moving words affect the maid?

THYRSIS.
She to these moving words no answer gave,
But with a blushing, and disdainful aspect,
Turned to the ground her eyes; with strong contortion
Endeavouring to conceal her lovely bosom.
He now began to loose her golden hair;
And to her virgin-bashfulness the task
He softened with these tender sentiments:
“And art thou, tree, worthy of so much honour?
How are these ringlets misapplied! not meant
To noose this lifeless trunk, this rugged substance:
The pride of nature for a worthier purpose,
To captivate the lover's feeling soul!”
He next the girdle which confined her hands
Untied in aukward, dilatory manner,
That showed his fear, and his desire to touch them.
But when he stooped, the fetters to untwist
That bound her limbs: she said, in angry tone,
“Shepherd, keep off thy sacrilegious hands;
I'm a chaste virgin of Diana's train;
Enough thou hast presumed; my hands are free,
With them I'll set my feet at liberty.”

CHORUS.
Dwells there such haughtiness in rural breasts?
Harsh retribution to a generous deed!

THYRSIS.
Forthwith Amyntas reverently withdrew:
As soon as he received the stern dismission,
He did not suffer even his eye to linger,
To steal at parting, a luxurious view.
I stood concealed amongst the neighbouring trees,
And saw, and overhead the whole adventure.
This cruel treatment fired me with resentment,
And ready was my tongue for exclamation.
Her feet now rid of their impediments,
Which with great difficulty was effected,
Away she ran, swift as a hunted deer;
As if she just had left the frightful Satyr,
And not Amyntas, her obsequious lover.

CHORUS.
Why did she fly so fast?

THYRSIS.
Her niggard soul
Rather to flight her safety chose to owe,
Than to her shepherd's generosity.

CHORUS.
Another mark of her ingratitude!
But tell us how your hapless friend resented
This humour, such as ne'er before I heard of.

THYRSIS.
Alas! I know not; for impelled with rage,
I tried to overtake the fugitive,
That by detaining her, I might torment
Her pride again, and load her with reproaches,
Such as I'd only give ingratitude:
But vain was my pursuit; I lost her soon;
The labyrinth of the wood secured her from me.
I to the spot where this adventure happened
Straightway returned, but could not find Amyntas.
My boding heart presages some disaster.
Oft did the melancholy swain imagine
Before this accident, that he would find
No friendly shelter from adversity,
But in the quiet, gloomy shade of death.
Thither, I fear, he hath at length retired.

CHORUS.
Oh! 'tis the way with disappointed lovers
To talk of dying; but they seldom bleed;
Protecting nature, kinder than the fair,
Keeps them in love with life, and wards the blow:
Rare, very rare, are the determined victims.

THYRSIS.
Amyntas, I'm afraid, is one of them.

CHORUS.
Fear not; thy friendship gives a false alarm.

THYRSIS.
I'll hasten to the cave of sage Elpinus:
Thither for consolation he is gone,
If he's alive; none fitter than Elpinus
To heal the wounded soul with virtuous counsel,
And raise it with the powers of harmony.
In awful solitude his cave is seated;
Nature improves the scene with various sweets,
Romantic in her garb; and attitudes.
These objects banish care, they set us loose
From mean attachments, and compose our souls
For fine impressions, and for heavenly airs:
But when the god-like bard, his flute inspiring,
Pours the melodious, sounding, varied strain;
We then participate an angel's nature;
'Tis nought but extasy, poetic vision.
Nor is it man alone that feels the charm:
It draws the sluggish, latent soul from rocks;
They listen, and they soften at the lay;
To milk are mellowed all the neighbouring rills,
And honey from the rugged oak distills.

SCENE II.

Amyntas, Daphne, Nerina.
AMYNTAS.
Daphne, thy pity was barbarity;
Thy hand my enemy that checked the dart.
And when I've formed the manly rosolution,
Why should I shrink, and cling again to life?
By lengthening life, I only suffer more.
And why dost thou, who art my friend, amuse me
With a delusive maze of argument?
Why dost thou cheat me into life, and make
The painted bubble Hope thus dance before me?
Daphne, there is more force, more genuine truth
In our strong feelings, our immediate sense,
Than in the waste of flowery eloquence,
And all the fopperies of the coxcomb, Reason.

DAPHNE.
Do not despair, Amyntas; if I know
Of Sylvia aught, it was not cruelty,
But shame, that caused her late behaviour to thee.

AMYNTAS.
Thou art a true physician; thou wouldst have
Thy love-sick patient dwindle on in torment.
Again thou offerest me false consolation,
A pleasing antidote against my welfare:
Despair alone can be my remedy;
A bitter, but a salutary medicine.
The specious liar, Hope, hath been my ruin:
Again I feel it rising in my breast;
It often faints, but still resumes its vigour;
Nay, when 'tis quite extinct, it lives again;
The merest trifle can restore it's being.
Nay, what it's bane should be, it's cordial proves!
Why do I hope? because I live; alas!
What evil greater than a life like mine!

DAPHNE.
For shame, support your misery like a man;
Live on in misery; nay, with future bliss
Contrast it, and convert it to your pleasure.
Who never suffers, never can enjoy;
He only dozes on a bed of down;
Pleasure's acutest point can hardly wake him.
But he whose frame, originally fine,
Is wrought still finer by adversity,
In better days, feels all their genial sun-shine;
His path is strewed with amaranths, and roses;
Elysium's glory opens on his eyes;
His ears are ravished with celestial musick:
What to the wallowing hog of Epicurus
Is bare convenience, is to him enjoyment:
No particle of happiness goes past him.
Live then, and hope; and your reward shall be
Those naked beauties which you lately saw.

AMYNTAS.
Why am I galled again with that idea?
Fortune, and love, my unrelenting foes,
Held forth the treasure to my longing view,
Of which they ne'er will grant me the fruition,
Only to render me completely wretched.

NERINA.
Alas! must I then be the croaking raven
Of melancholy news! Ah! poor Montanus!
What will thy feelings be, when thou shalt hear
Thy Sylvia's cruel fate, thy only daughter!

DAPHNE.
Amyntas, dont you hear the voice of woe?

AMYNTAS.
Yes; and I likewise hear the name of Sylvia;
It strikes my ear, and sets my heart a-beating.
Say, dost thou know the voice?

DAPHNE.
Yes, 'tis Nerina's;
A favourite of Diana; famous too
For her fine hand, and for her sparkling eye,
Her easy shape, and her engaging manner.

NERINA.
Yet he should know the mournful accident;
For he would wish to gather her remains,
If any can be found: Oh! hapless Sylvia!

AMYNTAS.
What can this be? What does this woman say?

NERINA.
Oh Daphne!

DAPHNE.
Whence, Nerina, this confusion?
Why speakest thou of Sylvia with a sigh?

NERINA.
Alas! her fate the deepest sigh demands!

AMYNTAS.
What dost thou mean? thou overwhelmest me;
My heart is freezing, and my life goes from me:
I dare not ask; yet say, doth Sylvia live?

DAPHNE.
Speak; be explicit; let us know the worst.

NERINA.
Why should I be a doleful messenger?
But now I must unfold the dreadful tale.
Sylvia came naked to my habitation;
Why she came so, I need not tell Amyntas.
As soon as she was dressed, she begged I would
A-hunting with her go to Elicetum.
Thither we went, and many nymphs we found
Assembled, by appointment, for the chace.
We had not long been there, when a fierce wolf
From covert rushed; enormous was his size;
And from his jaws a bloody foam distilled.
Forthwith the dexterous Sylvia took her aim,
And in the neck her arrow wounded him.
Howling he fled into the deepest wood;
And Sylvia, brandishing a dart, pursued him.

AMYNTAS.
Dreadful is the beginning of thy story;
I'm on the rack; it bodes a horrid end.

NERINA.
I likewise had a dart, and followed with it;
But soon in the pursuit I lagged behind;
Sylvia's agility surpasses mine.
I lost my objects, but I still advanced;
And hoping to recover them, I wandered
Through many a winding of the thickest wood.
But in my search a dreadful sight alarmed me;
The dart of Sylvia on the ground I saw;
And near it I beheld her snowy veil,
Which my own hands adjusted to her head.
Examining the ground with eager eyes,
A scene of greater horrour I surveyed;
I saw seven hungry wolves feasting on blood;
And near it, stripped of flesh, some bones lay scattered.
Intent upon their prey, they spied not me,
So fortunate I was: I hied me back,
Sore dreading for my friend, and spurred with fear.
No fuller tidings can I give of Sylvia;
Each monument of a departed friend
Is dear; her veil I brought; lo! here it is.

AMYNTAS.
No fuller tidings! thou hast told enough!
Oh! blood, Oh! veil, Oh! Sylvia, thou art dead!

DAPHNE.
He faints; the sudden shock of grief hath stopped
The springs of life! I fear he too is dead.

NERINA.
Fear not, he breathes; nature but makes a pause,
His colour is returning; he recovers.

AMYNTAS.
Oh! Grief, thou art a cruel, slow tormentor!
Wilt thou ne'er rid me of a painful life!
For my own hand reservest thou the office?
It willingly accepts it; by its blow,
It's speedy, and decisive blow, I'll pass
At once to that desirable quietus
From human misery, which thou, trifling mocker,
Refusest me, or hast not force to give!
And since I, from Nerina's deathful tongue,
Hear that appalling certainty, which makes
Desponding nature sink before it dies;
Since life, which way soe'er I turn myself,
Is waste, and rugged, all; no nook now left
For blooming hope to vegetate upon,
Why should I longer stay, what do I wait for?
O Daphne, 'tis to thy mistaken friendship
I owe the knowledge of this tragedy!
Thou hast officiously prolonged my life,
Only to arm my death with tenfold horrour.
Thy hand the seasonable blow prevented,
Which would have crowned my death with tender fame;
By one determined act I should have fallen,
A gallant sacrifice to slighted love.
I should have been imbalmed with elegy;
Some swain, more favoured than the rest by Phœbus,
My story would have sung in deathless verse;
He would have given me, with departed lovers,
A fragrant mansion in the myrtle grove,
Nor should I then have died reluctantly.
So fondly do we cling to life, we fancy,
That, when we're dead, we still exist in others,
Whom we have left behind. Thus leaving Sylvia,
Thinking that she would long be well, and happy;
And thinking (vain perhaps the thought had been)
That for Amyntas she would drop a tear,
I had from life to death an easy passage;
'Twas bidding but the world a slight adieu.
But now with what ideas shall I die?
For die I must; I am resolved to die.
The beauteous object of my passion dead,
Torn limb from limb by hungry, ravenous wolves,
Her soul breathed out in agony, and horrour!
No image left to substitute my being!
Oh! with what grimness death now stalks before me!
I leave thee, cruel world; ere long, Amyntas
Shall be to thee as he bad never been!
Oh! 'tis a blank farewel! it numbs the soul;
It almost kills without the fatal blow.
That I now feel this last, this worst distress,
I owe to fortune, and to thee, O Daphne!
Thou hast been only my unthinking friend;
But she was ever my deliberate foe.
But now the wished-for crisis sure is come;
Now have I reached the extremity of woe;
Fortune must now be willing to dismiss me,
Tired, or unable to distress me more:
And thou too, Daphne, wilt, at length, from friendship,
Assent that I should manumit my soul,
Too long a tortured prisoner in this body.

DAPHNE.
Thy grief, and wild despair shut out thy reason;
As yet the tale is not completely known;
Live yet awhile, till thou hast learned the whole.

AMYNTAS.
Alas! too long I've lived; too much I've learned.

NERINA.
I wish that Providence had struck me dumb
Ere I began to tell this dismal story.

AMYNTAS.
Give me that veil, Nerina, I intreat thee;
'Twas Sylvia's; therefore it is dear to me.
It's company will give me strength to go
My small remaining part of life's rough way.
A feeling soul, impoverished, and afflicted,
Is wont on trifles to recline itself,
And from them draws a melancholy pleasure.
If 'tis not blasphemy, to call a trifle,
What left behind a mistress, or a friend,
Is hallowed by a warm imagination.
It will encourage me to undertake,
With resolution, the last, painful task;
'Twill be my best viaticum; and cheer
My fluttering soul upon her dreary passage.

NERINA.
Say, Daphne, must I give it, or refuse it?
The motives that induce him to request it,
Persuade me strongly to withhold it from him.

AMYNTAS.
And wilt thou cruelly this little boon
Refuse me, now I'm on the verge of life?
Even to life's verge doth fortune persecute me.
I to her uniformity resign;
Keep it; and Heaven's protection keep you both;
I go from whence I never shall return.

DAPHNE.
Amyntas, stop, and hear me—no, he's gone;
With what a fury hath he flung away!

NERINA.
So swift he flies we cannot overtake him:
I'll then pursue my way, and to Montanus
I'm now resolved not to unfold this tale,
Till certainty shall warrant it's recital.
For since my blabbing tongue, too late, I find,
Hath raised a whirlwind in the lover's mind,
Which, I'm afraid, death will alone assuage,
More tender let me be to hoary age.

CHORUS.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

Daphne, Sylvia, Chorus.
DAPHNE.
My Sylvia, may propitious winds disperse
The false report of thy unhappy fate;
If any ill is now impending o'er thee,
Oh! may they quickly waft it far away,
And from my friend repel each future evil.
I see thee well; thanks to protecting Heaven!
But never did I think to see thee more:
So dreadful was the news Nerina brought us.
Would she had lost her speech, or we our hearing!

SYLVIA.
My danger certainly was very great;
Strong were the grounds she had to think me dead.

DAPHNE.
But it was foolish, it was cruel in her,
To shock us with her premature account:
But now our spirits are composed; pray tell me
The nature of the danger you were in,
And how, by Providence, 'twas only danger.

SYLVIA.
Into the wood I chased, with warm pursuit,
A wolf enormous, wounded by my arrow:
But soon I lost him in it's intricacies.
On my return this wolf again I spied;
I could not be mistaken; for the dart,
With which I pierced his neck, was still lodged there.
With other wolves I saw him o'er a carcase,
I know not of what animal, so much
By their rapacity it's form was mangled.
The savage seemed to know his adversary;
For to me straight he flew with bloody jaw.
I failed not to assume my wonted courage;
A dart I brandished, ready for the charge.
Thou knowest my address, and that my aim
But seldom wanders from the destined object.
I seized the juncture of his proper distance,
And launched my javelin; but the javelin erred;
It missed the wolf; and smote a neighbouring tree:
A fiercer onset now he meditated;
A baleful fire glared in his angry eye;
And with keen tusks he churned the whitened foam.
To flight I took me; for I had no arms;
And with as eager pace did he pursue me.
Hear now an accident, by which my flight
Was interrupted, and my fear augmented.
The veil came loose, in which my hair was fastened;
And waving, as I ran precipitately,
It was entangled in a branch: I felt
That something stopped my course; but what it was
I did not recollect, through headlong fear.
I freed myself by one impetuous spring;
But with my veil some hair I left behind.
Fear winged my feet with such a rapid flight,
That I escaped the raging wolf's pursuit,
Soon cleared the forest, and got safely home.
O'erjoyed I was again to meet my Daphne;
Though I was struck to see thee gaze upon me,
As if affrighted to behold thy friend.

DAPHNE.
Thou livest; but we are not all alive.

SYLVIA.
Daphne, what meanest thou; dost thou regret
That from the jaws of death I have escaped?
Can Sylvia's welfare give her Daphne pain?

DAPHNE.
No surely; I rejoice to see thou livest;
But we have lost a friend; for him I grieve.

SYLVIA.
Whom have we lost?

DAPHNE.
Amyntas is no more

SYLVIA.
Amyntas is no more?—How did he die?

DAPHNE.
I know not how; nor dare I to assert
That he is dead; but 'tis too probable.

SYLVIA.
What is it that I hear? I'm thunder-struck;
To what dost thou impute his death?

DAPHNE.
To thine.

SYLVIA.
I know not what thou meanest.

DAPHNE.
Of thy death
He heard the hasty news, and he believed it.
And this belief hath driven him to self-slaughter;
Or by the noose, or dagger he hath died,
Or other implement of desperate love.

SYLVIA.
Thy apprehension of his death is vain,
As vainly thou didst fear that I was dead.
However harsh the cup of life may be,
We still love life; 'tis nature's general law;
We fret, and we complain; sometimes despair,
And with our threats alarm our fearful friends;
But commonly these agitations end
In shrinking back into ourselves, and living on.

DAPHNE.
O Sylvia, Sylvia, little dost thou know
How love torments a heart of flesh and blood;
For thine is petrified, and cannot feel:
And how can an obdurate, barren soul
Be struck with pictures which it ne'er imagines!
Would we these pictures to that soul explain?
'Tis to the blind man to harangue on colours;
'Tis to the deaf to teach the charms of musick.
For hadst thou been of sympathetick mould,
Thou wouldst have loved this warm and constant shepherd
More than thy visual orb; that little mirrour
At which thou takest in the fair creation;
More than the spirit which informs thy body.
Alas! I have but too substantial grounds
To fear, nay, to be sure, that he is dead.
When from the Satyr he had rescued thee,
And with such cruelty when thou hadst left him,
Too well I marked the frenzy of his love.
A dart's keen point he to his breast directed,
Determined by despair to urge it forwards.
I the rash act prevented; but the weapon
Was with his blood distained, before I seized it.
And if I had not checked it opportunely,
It would have then transfixed that faithful heart,
Which thy inhuman rigour hath pierced through
With a more painful wound, and no less fatal.
Yet though thou then wast naked, I must tell thee,
Thou wouldst have done much honour to thy sex,
If, out of gratitude, thou hadst embraced him.
Our souls should sometimes point us out decorum;
Tis in nice cases too refined for rules;
As equity sometimes takes place of law.
Mechanick motion leave to vulgar souls;
Leave them to coxcombs, to coquettes and prudes;
For these disfigurements of human kind
Are copied from the cities into hamlets.
The prude, by many lessons from her glass,
Her look, originally warm, and lewd,
Converts to chastity's severest winter.
The gay coquette elaborately flutters;
Her easy airs are the result of study:
The coxcomb languishes, and dies by art.
Not so the simple, generous, virtuous mind;
'Tis better taught, and takes it's cue from nature.

SYLVIA.
Oh! I repent my treatment of Amyntas!

DAPHNE.
Sufficient reason hast thou to repent;
For when he heard the tidings of thy death,
Forthwith he fainted; soon as he recovered,
Away he went in desperate, frantic mood;
And surely he hath struck the fatal blow.

SYLVIA.
What, art thou sure?

DAPHNE.
Alas! I cannot doubt it!

SYLVIA.
Good Heavens? how couldst thou be so indolent
As not to follow him, and try to find him,
And by thy diligence prevent the deed.
Quick let us fly—let us seek every where;
We yet may save him from his desperate hand.
If the idea of my death so shocked him,
And o'er his life spread such a horrid gloom,
My safety to his mind will gild the scene.

DAPHNE.
I did pursue him; but he ran so swiftly,
I could not overtake him;—I endeavoured
To trace his flight; but my attempt was vain.
Whither then wouldst thou have us go to seek him;
Since where he is we cannot even conjecture?

SYLVIA.
Alas, but if we find him not, he'll die;
Die an untimely death by his own hand.

DAPHNE.
Thou unrelenting woman, dost thou grieve
Because thou wilt not perpetrate the deed
With thy own hand; dost thou then wish to be
His homicide, as thou has been his tyrant?
Will not thy savage nature let thee see
That it befits thee ill to murder him?
But do not thus repine; for thou mayst claim,
Howe'er he dies, the glory of his death:
Thy fancy may be glutted with his blood;
Thou givest his misfortunes their completion;
The arm thou springest which inflicts the blow.

SYLVIA.
How thine, and how my own reproaches rack me!
I'm galled to think how rigid I was to him;
Yet that severity proceeded not
From any pleasure in barbarity;
But from the delicacy of my virtue.
Now of that delicacy the excess
I know, and shall repent it while I live.

DAPHNE.
Good Heavens! with what new language you surprize me!
Dost thou begin to grow compassionate?
Say, from it's hardness does thy heart relent?
Are my eyes just? and dost thou really weep?
Whence flow those tears? are they the tears of love?

SYLVIA.
No—not the tears of love; but tears of pity.

DAPHNE.
That's well;—thou now approachest Cupid's precincts;
For pity is the harbinger of love,
Sure as the lightning's flash announces thunder.

CHORUS.
Nay oft the subtle god, to spread his empire,
Afraid lest undisguised he should alarm
The virgin's tender, timid breast, puts on
The unsuspected garb of innocence;
And often this luxurious deity,
The more effectually to work his plot,
Is metamorphosed into rigid virtue,
Or takes the milder dress of soft compassion.
Thus he by slow, and unperceived approaches
Secures a lodgment in the coldest bosom;
And soon it's citadel, the heart he makes
His own, and breathes into it all his flame.

DAPHNE.
Her grief refuses utterance to her voice.
Sylvia, I now am well convinced thou lovest,
But thou hast caught the tender flame too late.
The god, whose power thou hast profanely spurned,
With dreadful vengeance now asserts his empire.
When the bee shoots it's sting, it parts with life;
Like it unfortunate Amyntas dies.
He, at his death, a cruel heart transfixes,
Which was impenetrable while he lived,
Unfeeling to a warm, yet virtuous passion.
And if thy amiable spirit, loth
To quit it's well known scenes for Pluto's gloom,
Yet hovers round it's melancholy friends;
Look down with pleasure on thy nymph's distress,
Enjoy her sighs, an incense due to thee;
Enjoy her plaintive words, thy well-earned vows;
Enjoy the copious streaming of her tears,
A fit libation to thy injured manes.
In life a lover, only loved in death;
Unsatisfactory, capricious fate!
But since thy destiny hath been so barbarous,
That thou couldst only purchase from thy mistress
Her love with the surrender of thy life,
The price enormous thou hast freely paid,
And fallen a martyr to the purest passion,
Quite sublimated from terrestrial matter.

CHORUS.
Dear was this price for love to him who payed it,
And nought but infamy to the receiver.

SYLVIA.
Oh, that my love could but redeem his life!
Oh that my death could him to life restore,
If he in truth is dead—for still I hope.

DAPHNE.
Ah Sylvia! thy repentance comes too late,
It's good precluded by the voice of fate;
With the frail human kind a common ill;
When right we cannot act, we rightly will.
Thus frequently the disobedient son,
The time to expiate his offences gone,
Regrets his impious treatment of his sire,
The parent's breath just ready to expire:
He, who in vice hath wasted all his youth,
Neglectful then of each important truth,
Wishes, in life mature, to grow more wise;
Feels virtue's charms, procrastinates, and—dies.

SCENE II.

Messenger, Chorus, Sylvia, Daphne.
MESSENGER.
Pity and horrour so possess my soul,
That of my senses I'm almost bereft;
Each object that I see, and hear, alarms me.

CHORUS.
Thy countenance, and speech express dismay;
What tidings dost thou bring?

MESSENGER.
The doleful tidings
Of poor Amyntas' death.

SYLVIA.
Oh knelling sound!

MESSENGER.
Never did shepherd tread the rural plain
More graceful, and more polished than Amyntas;
Of every nymph a favourite was Amyntas;
Amyntas had a rich, poetick soul,
And to the Muses was his genius dear.
Yet in the prime of life, and bloom of virtue
He's dead; and of a death how lamentable!

CHORUS.
Shepherd explain thyself; that his misfortune,
And our own loss we may with thee deplore.

SYLVIA.
Alas! I dare not hear the mournful tale:
Oh! my inhuman, oh! my savage heart!
Now, tyrant, show thy rough, unfeeling nature.
Whilst thy Amyntas lived, thou didst torment
The gentlest, faithfullest, the best of shepherds,
Unworthy of thy scorn, thou cold barbarian!
And since his tragedy must now be told,
Endure the rack this messenger prepares thee
As calmly as thou didst excruciate him.
Shepherd, impart thy story; 'tis to me
Of more concern than haply thou supposest:
I'm ready for the worst; for I deserve
The most distracting truth thy tongue can utter:
It is my due; and let me have it all.

MESSENGER.
I well believe thee; for I heard Amyntas
Calling on thee just at the fatal moment;
Thou wast the object of his thoughts, while thought
Had yet it's mansion in his breast; his tongue
Pronounced thy name ere it was mute for ever.

DAPHNE.
I dread the news; yet, I intreat thee, tell it.

MESSENGER.
Upon the hill, where oft the vacant swain
Catches the feathered warblers, I was seated.
There, while I watched my toils, Amyntas passed me;
But how much was he from Amyntas changed!
Disordered was his step, his face was pale:
And from his wandering eye shot black despain.
His pace was quick; I quickly followed him;
And overtook him soon;—he turned, and said,
Ergastus, I request a favour of thee;
'Tis that thou wouldst a little way go with me,
And see me do a memorable deed:
But first I must insist that thou shalt give me
The sacred obligation of an oath,
By which thou shalt engage to stand apart;
For thou must witness bear, not interrupt me.
I readily complied with his proposal;
Who would have thought him bent on deed so horrid,
His mind wrought up to such a height of frenzy?
With all the oaths I ratified my promise
That bind the faith of the religious swain.
Pan, Pales, and Pomona I invoked,
Priapus, and nocturnal Hecate.
As soon as this solemnity was over,
Up to the hill's extremity he took me,
Where in an awful precipice it ends,
Of barren cavities and pointed rocks.
A valley terminates this precipice.
We stopped upon the summit; I looked down,
And started back, scared at the dreadful steep,
And fearing for Amyntas's design.
But he put on a countenance serene,
Nay smiled; and with his smile my fear was lessened.
Then thus he spoke to me; be sure, Ergastus,
To tell the nymphs, and swains of our acquaintance
The scene which thou shalt now behold: he then
Looked down, and spoke these memorable words
With all the pathos of despairing love.
“Had I the ravine of a famished wolf
As near me as I have this rugged steep,
I'd seek to die thy death, my hapless fair one;
I'd wish to have my body torn, and mangled,
As was thy delicate, and beauteous frame:
I grudge myself an easier death than thine.
But since I cannot have my wish accomplished;
Since Heaven denies the opportune attack
Of a rapacious animal; this way
I'll take to die, although it be too gentle.
Sylvia, I follow thee, I come: Oh! Sylvia, let me
Be thy companion in a better state!
How richly would my death be then rewarded!
Yes, Sylvia, sure thou wilt; the land of spirits,
Is, doubtless, a more generous world than this,
And consequently doth exalt our natures.
There too a purer flame inspires the swain
For unembodied nymph! thy virtue placed
Beyond the reach of gross mortality,
Thy virgin-fears will there be all removed;
For there ethereal love alone can woo thee:
Sylvia, I follow thee, I come!” He said,
And down the precipice strait threw himself,
While I stood torpid with severe amazement.

DAPHNE.
Unfortunate Amyntas!

SYLVIA.
Wretched Sylvia!

CHORUS.
Thou shouldst have stopped his rashness; but perhaps
Thy oath prevented thee from interposing?

MESSENGER.
No; when I saw his purpose, I forgot
That I was sacredly engaged; and sure,
Heaven, in such cases, from an oath absolves us;
I flew to save him; caught him by his girdle:
The girdle snapped, too feeble to pull back
His body's weight, impelled with violence.
It in my hand remained; I've brought it with me.

CHORUS.
And did you not look down to see what followed?

MESSENGER.
Ah! no; with what I had already seen
I was so terrified, I looked no farther:
I could not look upon his mangled corse:
I saw his mangled corse in my mind's eye.

CHORUS.
I never heard a more disastrous tale!

SYLVIA.
Sylvia may justly now be said to have
A stony heart, since this news doth not kill me.
And since the tidings of my death yet wanting
Their proof, occasioned his untimely end;
A sacrifice ill-suiting my disdain:
'Tis meet that his too true catastrophe,
Who was my faithful, and too generous lover,
Should by my voluntary death be followed.
For I am overwhelmed with shame, and horrour:
Already conscience is in arms against me,
Chides my delay, and points me out the tomb.
Grief is a cowardly, lazy, trifling thing;
'Twill be too slow an executioner;
I'll have recourse to the decisive steel;
Or the dear zone shall be my instrument,
Which left it's hold, and could not bear to see
The horrid exit of it's gentle master.
It stayed behind him to revenge his fate,
And give my rigour it's just retribution.
Unhappy zone of more unhappy swain!
Grudge not awhile to be in my possession;
For I will keep thee but to vindicate
The wrongs I've done to thy departed owner.
'Twas certainly my duty to have been
The kind companion of his earthly state;
But since profanely I've despised that duty,
I go to seek him in the future world:
I conquer the timidity of woman;
I sacrifice my life to injured love;
Perhaps that offering may propitiate Heaven,
My guilt may expiate, and entitle me
To join my shepherd in the shades below.

CHORUS.
Take comfort, Sylvia; for this accident
We should ascribe to fortune, not to thee.
The violence of grief that wrings thy soul
Would make tears flow from the most flinty nature.

SYLVIA.
Shepherds, why weep you? do you weep for me?
You prostitute your pity, if you do;
For I had no compassion for Amyntas.
For him more justly if your tears you shed,
Wipe them away; they suit not the occasion;
Too trivial an effect from such a cause.
And thou, my Daphne, too, wipe thine away;
They wound me, Daphne, and they're unavailing.
And if thy Sylvia raises this emotion,
I beg thou mayst suppress it to oblige me,
And turn thy mind to a more worthy object.
Let us perform a sadly pleasing office;
Let us our shepherd's breathless, mangled limbs
Redeem from the unhospitable rocks,
And with a decent sepulture compose them.
His grave with yew, and cypress we'll adorn,
And, with more gay religion, o'er it strew
The brightest, and most aromatick flowers,
Invoking Heaven for his eternal rest.
For nothing now but his funereal rites
Detains me longer from the realms of Pluto.
Let me perform this last, this only duty
That I can pay his memory ere I die.
And though, I'm sensible this impious hand
A work so pious may contaminate,
Yet well I know the tribute of this hand,
However impious, will be grateful to him.
His death, alas! but too completely proved
How partially, with what excess he loved me!

DAPHNE.
Yes, Sylvia, I'll assist thee in that office,
With a most amicable veneration
For the remains of our departed friend;
But on condition that thou thinkest not
Of dying, when his obsequies are over.

SYLVIA.
I've hitherto lived only to myself,
To gratify my supercilious temper:
But the few moments I have yet remaining,
Devoutly will I dedicate to him:
Those marks of love I'll show Amyntas dead,
Which I would never give his graceful person,
When animated with it's tender soul.
But a short period I assign my life;
Soon after I've inhumed my lover's body,
Mine by the nymphs and swains shall be interred.
Amyntas' grave shall be made large enough
To hold the corpse of each; we have, in life,
Been, by my folly, kept too much asunder;
Then let us in the tomb repose together.
Pray, shepherd, show me where my lover lies.

MESSENGER.
Daphne will show thee: 'tis not far from hence.

DAPHNE.
Yes, I'll conduct thee; well I know the place.

SYLVIA.
Shepherds, farewell, the heavenly powers preserve you.
Ye trees, ye rivulets, ye hills, adieu!
Adieu, for ever to the bloom of nature!

MESSENGER.
Shepherds, this nymph, without our watchful care,
The fate of her Amyntas soon will share;
Her gesture, look, and words bespeak despair.

CHORUS.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

Elpinus, Chorus.
ELPINUS.
Love is not a severe, capricious god;
'Tis human blindness that will have him so;
'Tis our corruption of a generous passion.
What seems obliquity, is providence;
'Tis mystery benign, only enveloped
To make a scheme of happiness complete:
I see he rules us with a golden law.
Oh! through what rugged paths, through what dark windings,
To his fair garden of Elysian bliss
He leads despairing man, just when he thinks
A deep abyss of misery yawns before him!
Amyntas was, by Cupid's destination,
From a tremendous height precipitated.
Yet from that fall he meant that he should rise,
That fall, which seemed his end of love and being,
To gain the arduous summit of enjoyment.
Happy Amyntas!—thy delights will hold
Proportion to thy antecedent woes.
Let thy example cheer me, and inspire me
With the religion of a modest lover;
And make me hope that one day, too, my fair-one,
By whose delusive smiles I'm now tormented,
As often flowers conceal the serpent's venom,
Will from the rigour of her soul relax,
And give me tender, unaffected smiles,
Sent from her heart; oracular of love:
Oh! 'twill be full amends for all my anguish!

CHORUS.
Here comes the sage Elpinus; by his talk,
One would suppose Amyntas yet alive:
I hear he calls him fortunate, and happy.
Hard is the fate of unsuccessful lovers;
So hard, they only find relief in death.
Perhaps he calls his friend Amyntas happy,
Concluding he excites his Sylvia's pity,
Now dead, which living he could ne'er obtain.
Perhaps he calls the grave love's paradise;
And hopes that paradise will soon receive him.
Cupid, thou art a parsimonious master,
Thy zealous votaries have but poor rewards.
Or rather thou art a despotick tyrant,
And stiflest in the most exalted minds,
The bright idea, and the throb for virtue—
And is the sage Elpinus then so wretched,
And so forgetful of his manly tenets,
As rashly to pronounce Amyntas happy?
Art thou desirous of a fate like his?

ELPINUS.
No, my mistaken friends—I give you joy;
Amyntas is not dead, as you have heard.

CHORUS.
What heart-felt consolation dost thou bring us!
But from the rock did he not throw himself?

ELPINUS.
'Tis very true; but that precipitation,
Although it had death's most tremendous aspect,
Hath proved the prelude to his life, and joy.
This moment he reclines on Sylvia's bosom,
As tender now as she before was cruel,
And with fond kisses meets her falling tears.
To Sylvia's father now my steps I'm bending,
The old Montanus; him I go to bring,
That he may witness this impassioned scene.
For, his consent obtained, the happy pair
Will forthwith ratify their virtuous love:
O'er them his hallowed torch will Hymen wave.

CHORUS.
The strongest arguments persuade this marriage:
In age, in disposition, and in manners,
Equal they are, and equal in their love.
The good Montanus too wishes to see
His life extended in his numerous race;
A blooming image, usual with old men!
It warms, and animates the frost of age.
Therefore he surely will approve their flame.
But satisfy our curiosity,
I pray, Elpinus; tell us what strange fortune,
Or tutelary god, preserved Amyntas,
When he rushed headlong down the precipice.

ELPINUS.
Most willingly; hear then what I beheld.
Before my cave I was; my cave you know;
'Tis in the bosom of the charming vale;
And near it stands the lover's precipice,
On the same side; there I with Thyrsis walked.
Love was our theme; the nymph's bewitching charms,
Whose power had captivated him, and me.
His fortitude had thrown her influence off,
And he was boasting of his liberty.
But as the lover hugs his chains more fondly
Than any other slave, I would insist,
Not with cool reason, but with warm chimera,
That though he ridiculed my servitude,
It was more eligible than his freedom.
Our amorous speculation soon was broken;
A cry above us our attention drew;
And in the instant that we heard the cry,
We saw a man fall from the height; his fall
Was by some herbs and bushes checked, which grew
Close, and projecting from the rocky steep:
But there he stopped not; onward still he rushed,
And on the ground, just at our feet, he lighted.
But by that intercepting prominence,
His fall was gentler, and his life preserved:
Yet had the broken shock it's violence;
More than an hour bereft of sense he lay:
We knew him straight, and for a while continued
As stunned as he with wonder, and with grief.
As he returned from temporary death,
We from our stupefaction too recovered.
Thyrsis then told me his affecting story,
His ardent passion with disdain repayed.
A neighbouring shepherd passed by chance that way,
And we dispatched him for Alphesibeus,
To whom Apollo taught the healing art,
Then when to me the tuneful lyre he gave,
And with fit harmony my soul inspired,
To draw the full expression of it's musick.
We with our best endeavours tried, meanwhile,
To re-establish nature's languid functions.
And while we thus were busied, we saw Sylvia,
And Daphne, with her, hastily advancing.
They (as they told us after) had been seeking
The body of Amyntas, which they thought
The vital spirit had some time deserted.
Her shepherd in this plight while she beheld,
The blood as yet scarce creeping to his cheeks,
And slowly gaining on the lily's whiteness,
Exhaling, as she thought, his tender soul,
Straight love and grief with all their frenzy seized her:
Never did Bacchanal show more distraction:
The hills resounded with her piercing cries;
She smote her bosom, and she tore her hair,
And threw herself on her reviving lover.
Their lovely faces too long kept asunder,
Now met; she pressed her ruby lips to his.
The warm impression cherished feeble nature;
And grisly death, who, with his levelled dart,
Had for his victim destined her Amyntas,
At length, by love defeated, stalked away,
(He could not bear this animating scene)
And left her mistress of the doubtful field.

CHORUS.
I own; a strong criterion tried her love:
Yet strange it is that she at once relinquished
Her former coyness, and severity.

ELPINUS.
In common instances we may conceal
The master-passion; but on great occasions,
Too strongly irritated to lie still,
It will break forth, and loudly tell the world
What fermentation often works the soul,
When it pretends to smile, and be composed.
Sylvia relaxed at length from violence;
And the storm ended in a shower of tears,
Which on her lover's face the fair-one shed.
Precious and salutary were the tears;
They flowed from love; and by it's magick influence,
They hastened the recovery of Amyntas.
Opening his eyes, he fetched a heavy sigh;
The heavy sigh, issuing from pain and languor,
Was by his Sylvia's balmy mouth received;
Her breath impregnated, and sent it back
Fraught with the cheering seeds of life, and joy.
And now his heart beats with it's usual vigour;
And now his eye resumes it's former lustre.
But can the most enthusiastick poet
Describe their bliss in that transporting moment
He to a second life was now restored;
A second life, how different from the past!
The past was saddened with despair, and death,
But this was brightened with propitious love.
And what must then have been the fair-one's feelings?
She who before concluded she had caused
Her swain to rush upon untimely death,
Found him to perfect being now restored;
And by the influence of her sympathy,
Life's sweetest pleasures opening to his view;
Which she with him was destined to enjoy.
Ye who have been Cupid's warm votaries,
Form in imagination, if you can,
The inward workings of this tender scene.
No—they elude imagination's power;
Fancied they cannot be; much less recited.
These feelings are the great originals,
The incommunicable strokes of nature;
Existing only where she first impressed them;
They lose their life in the cold copyist's hand;
Their spirit is too fine to bear transfusion.

CHORUS.
Amyntas, then, you say, is out of danger.

ELPINUS.
Out of all hazard is his life; 'tis true,
His face is somewhat scratched, his body bruised:
These trifles in the tide of joy are lost.
Thrice happy swain! who of a virtuous maid
To such extremity hast proved thy love!
Thrice happy swain! thy danger now escaped,
Will make thy future good more sensible;
Will give thy pleasures a more vigorous tone:
For pleasure, without pain, loses it's nature;
And but a series yields of neutral being.
Shepherds, it pleases my benevolence
With joyful news to have dispelled your sorrow:
You have the substance of this strange adventure;
And now farewell: I go to find Montanus.
Nor does this office please me less; I go
To rivet pleasure in the place of woe;
Proud with my influence to assist a pair,
Whom Heaven hath marked with it's peculiar care;
To crown with Hymen's blessings, love and truth;
To make a good old man resume his youth;
Make his heart feel, while he the rite surveys,
The strong pulsation of it's better days;
To draw it's finest language from the soul,
And down his cheeks bid sacred sluices roll,
Which conscious Jove will view from his abode,
Of such a nature pleased to be the God.

CHORUS.

POETICAL THOUGHTS, AND VIEWS; ON THE BANKS OF THE WEAR.

A POETICAL ADDRESS TO THE SUPREME BEING.

A CONFERENCE BETWIXT APOLLO AND HIS DISCIPLE.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. JOHNSON'S FAVORITE CAT.

AN ODE TO A RIVULET;

The Ode is supposed to be written by Diogenes the Philosopher.

ON SEEING MR. GARRICK IN DON JOHN,

AND HIS AGE IN THE PUBLIC PAPERS.

PROLOGUE, For the School for Wives.

To ------

A PROLOGUE Spoken at Portsmouth, by MRS. HEARD,

In the Summer of the Year, 1775.

THE VOLUPTUARY.

A SONG. WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1770.

TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM, JUST PUBLISHED, entitled THE DYING NEGRO.

TO HENRY COLLINGWOOD, SELBY, ESQ.

A NEW HYMN, FOR EASTER SUNDAY, 1785;

COMPOSED FOR THE CHURCH OF LESBURY.

TO LADIES KILLING WASPS WITH OIL.

FRANCE;—ORLEANS;—LANSDOWNE.

ON MISS WILLIS.

VERSES TO MISS DALTON,

ON HER APPROACHING BIRTH-DAY.

AN EPITAPH.

VERSES ON THE DEATH OF THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.

ON MY GOING TO LIVE AT WINDSOR.

VERSES on THE FIRE AT CLIFDEN.

AN ODE, ON LORD NELSON'S VICTORY over THE DANES.

ON THE SECOND MEMORABLE VICTORY, AT ABOUKIR.

AN EPITAPH ON A VERY PRETTY AND MOST AMIABLE CAT.

Mischance, which only with my life will end,
Hath robbed me of a dear, though humble friend.
This primrose marks the spot where TIBSY lies;
Learn worth from her, ye proud; ye rich; ye wise!
Ingratitude grow generous, if you can;
And let the animal improve the man.
Pride, to corruption destined from it's birth,
It's pomp expired, like her, must rot in earth:
Her wants, that never strayed from nature's rules,
Reproved the mental fevers of our fools;
She ne'er was tortured with the miser's pain;
Nor with the last resources of the vain.
Her mind, not philosophically great,
Had all the knowledge proper for her state;
Ne'er wished through metaphysick wilds to roam;
But kept at common sense's wiser home.
To kind, and constant friends, her love sincere
Demands the tribute of a pious tear;
Their tender words well to her heart were known;
Which answered in a soft, pathetick tone;
Ingratitude was never her disgrace;
She left that stigma to the human race.
Perhaps, to her, in blest elysian fields,
Some little bower it's fragrant foliage yields;
Perhaps, where generous dogs, and horses stray,
She basks, and sports in everlasting day;
Haply, some friend, with my affection, there,
Receives her tender voice through purer air.
Lie light this turf on gentle TIBSY's head;
His genial influence, here, let zephyr shed;
Let summer's warmth, succeeding vernal showers,
Adorn her grave with aromatick flowers!

VERSES ON THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

A POETICAL TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF LORD NELSON

AN EPITAPH ON MR. PITT.

ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF MONMOUTHSHIRE:

A BOOK, JUST PUBLISHED.

THE PHILOSOPHER.

A POEM.