Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/37

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AMYNTAS.
5
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 sexis joys.

With