Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/142

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110
AMYNTAS.
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 resolution,
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