118
AMYNTAS.
Why should I longer stay, what do I wait for?
O Daphne, 'tis to thy mistaken friendship
I owe the knowledge of this tragedy!
Thou hast officiously prolonged my life,
Only to arm my death with tenfold horrour.
Thy hand the seasonable blow prevented,
Which would have crowned my death with tender fame;
By one determined act I should have fallen,
A gallant sacrifice to slighted love.
I should have been imbalmed with elegy;
Some swain, more favoured than the rest by Phœbus,
My story would have sung in deathless verse;
He would have given me, with departed lovers,
A fragrant mansion in the myrtle grove.
Nor should I then have died reluctantly.
So fondly do we cling to life, we fancy,
That, when we're dead, we still exist in others,
Whom we have left behind. Thus leaving Sylvia,
O Daphne, 'tis to thy mistaken friendship
I owe the knowledge of this tragedy!
Thou hast officiously prolonged my life,
Only to arm my death with tenfold horrour.
Thy hand the seasonable blow prevented,
Which would have crowned my death with tender fame;
By one determined act I should have fallen,
A gallant sacrifice to slighted love.
I should have been imbalmed with elegy;
Some swain, more favoured than the rest by Phœbus,
My story would have sung in deathless verse;
He would have given me, with departed lovers,
A fragrant mansion in the myrtle grove.
Nor should I then have died reluctantly.
So fondly do we cling to life, we fancy,
That, when we're dead, we still exist in others,
Whom we have left behind. Thus leaving Sylvia,
Thinking
