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 inveloped 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?
FLPINUS. '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 perswade 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 awhile 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 its musick. We with our best endeavours tried, mean while, 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 the 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 feebled 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 views 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.
I. I'll not dispute thy providence, O Love; Perhaps Amyntas was thy constant care; And doomed by thee sublimer bliss to prove, By disappointment, anguish, and despair.
II. But never let such pains my life annoy, Propitious sovereign of the golden bow! Give it no bitterly contrasted joy; But in a gentle tenor let it flow.
III. To thee let men of more romantick strain, For poignant pleasure, dearly bought, apply; Calmer fruition to thy votary deign; For no knight-errant in thy realms am I.
IV. Yet, sultan-like, o'er a still, passive frame, I wish not to maintain a brutal sway; No; let bright intellect inspire my dame; And in each action dart it's heavenly ray.
V. Let smiling liberty expand her charms; Fine sentiment should never feel controul; And let her, when her breast gay fancy warms, Indulge her own, and animate my soul.
VI. Let her sometimes repulse my growing flame; A fair one may be opportunely coy; A victim to possess is not my aim; I would not have a blunt, and vapid joy.
VII. Nay, sometimes, that her mind may all be seen, I'd have her with me for a moment jar; And brighter thus will be the following scene; A fairer peace will crown the little war.
VIII. But let not anger, rankling in her heart, Inflict the torment of her long disdain; Whatever bliss it after might impart, I'd not buy ecstacy with so much pain.
IX. Never, O Cupid! to my humble mind The dog star's heat, or winter's horrour bring; But may I ever in thy empire find The downy pleasures of the genial spring.
