AMYNTAS.
41
To happiness in vain presumes to tend, By means that do not on himself depend; Crosses attack him in a numerous train, And all the family of moral pain.Yet this but theory; I do not mean From it's deep-rooted love thy heart to wean; Love still must actuate the sequestered swain, His highest pleasure, and acutest pain; Or else a mere machine he'd draw his breath, In dull indifference, in a living death. But in thy breast let reason have her share; A tempered passion gives a tempered care. When reason's gentle government we quit, Too warmly with an earthly object smit; Blindly we're driven by passions furious sway, The heddy mind is every trifle's play; Each little circumstance our fear awakes, Which reason in its just proportion takes. Thus does the shepherd, blest with vigorous eyes, See objects in their proper form, and size:
But
