Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/78

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46
AMYNTAS.
Where is love's gay disport? the frolick play,
Chacing the winter's eve, and summer's day?
Where are the flowing locks of beauteous hair,
Sweetly disordered by the wanton air?
The flowing locks are in a net confined,
Sad emblem of the fair-one's fettered mind.
Our words, our steps the school of honour guides,
And folemn folly o'er our life presides.
The golden days of liberty are o'er,
We steal the bliss, which was a gift before.
These, Honour, are the boons thy laws confer;
By thee we suffer, for by thee we err.
But hence to busy life; we cannot bear
Thy cumbrous grandeur, and thy dazzling glare:
O'er courts, and cities, thou wast meant to reign;
They seek thy guilt; and let them feel thy pain.
Hence to the great, nor from thy empire stray;
Let old Simplicity the simple sway.
Let us make most of time, love, sport and sing;
For fleeting time is ever on the wing.

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