Classic Poem

Not all pale Hecate's direful charms,
When hell's invoked to rise in swarms,
When graves are ransacked, mandrakes torn,
And rue and baleful nightshade torn,
Could give that torturing, racking pain
These magic lines did once obtain;
There's not a letter in the whole,
But what conspired to wound the soul.

But now! the dread enchantment's o'er;
The spell is broke, they plague no more.
'Twas only paper daubed with art:
Could such a trifle gain a heart,
Obstruct the peace of early life,
And set the passions all at strife,
Admit no cure, till time erased
The fond ideas fancy placed?

Combustible I'm sure you are;
Arise, ye flames! assist me, air!
Waft the vain atoms to the wind,
Disperse the fraud, and purge mankind.
The fatal relics thus removed,
Does Celia look like one who loved,
Who durst her future peace repose
On vows, and oaths, and toys like those?

Fallacious deity! to thee
The guilt, and the simplicity,
Who thought such cobweb-arts could bind,
To all eternity, the mind.
When honour's fled, thy flames expire,
And end in smoke like common fire.

Thus the entangled bird, set free,
Finds treble joy in liberty.
Her little heart may throb and beat,
Nor soon the danger past forget,
Dread to forsake the safeguard wood,
And shun awhile the chrystal flood;
But with the next returning spring,
Retire to shades—you'll hear her sing.