Farewell and Defiance to Love

Love and thy vain employs, away From this too oft deluded breast! No longer will I court thy stay, To be my bosom's teazing guest. Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure, Thou quackery of the harassed heart, That kills what it pretends to cure, Life's mountebank thou art. With nostrums vain of boasted powers, That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave; An asp hid in a group of flowers, That bites and stings when few perceive; Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind, Leading it more in sorrow's way, Freedom, that leaves us more confined, I bid thee hence away.…