Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/89

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
AMYNTAS.
57
Are busied from their infancy to know
What dress, and manner best become their person,
And all the arts that steal away the soul,
Elaborate, and yet displayed with ease:
To know to give a meditated death,
Under the snare of trivial, airy pleasure;
To know the whole machinery of love——
To know what engines kill, what only wound;
What lenitives asswage the lover's pain;
What are the potent charms that bring him back
From Pluto's confines to the golden day;
From drooping nature to the bloom of health,
And all the sweets of fancy's paradise.

DAPHNE.
You paint a curious art; say who bestows it?

THYRSIS.
Daphne, thy question is a female wile;
Thou feignest ignorance to discover mine.
Who taught the birds their musick, and their flight?

Who