Classic Poem

Ye that have heard the melancholy sound
Of Love's complaint, that hopeless passion fed,
When at his impious altar I have bled
Ere wise too late my error I had found; —
Think not I ask to be with chaplets crown'd
For visionary joy, or captious dread,
And reason thro' bewildering mazes led, —
Or chains fantastic, that an ideot bound!
I ask your pity; — and recall with shame
The idle story of my wasted hours. —
The scene is clos'd — the tempter is no more —
And, tho' late rescued from that perilous flame ,
The Soul collects her vindicated powers; —
The past recording — only to deplore.