University of Virginia Library


316

A CONCEIT.

Armida 'tis that makes the flower seem fiar,
Armida who the common earth makes bright,
Armida's voice with music fills the air—
Armida's eye that gives the sun his light!
Oh! the dark depth of that inspiring eye,
Whose every flash seems sent forth but to kill!
Yet who could storm against such enemy,
Or think, to die by such sweet death an ill?
Thus I, tho' looking, die, yet can't refrain,
But look and die—to look and die again!
Oh! hard it is, the fatal truth to prove
That we must die even by that we love.