So intimate was the acquaintance of this celebrated Witch with the subtle properties of all plants, that by the aid of the noxious juices she extracted from them, she was enabled to exercise marvellous powers of enchantment. At her bidding, “Now strange to tell, the plants sweat drops of blood, The trees are toss’d from forests where they stood; Blue serpents o’er the tainted herbage slide, Pale glaring spectres on the æther ride.” Circe was assiduous in “simpling on the flow’ry hills,” and her attendants were taught to despise the ordinary occupations of women: they were unburdened by household cares, “But culled, in canisters, disastrous flowers And plants from haunted heaths and Fairy bowers, With brazen sickles reap’d at planetary hours Each dose the goddess weighed with watchful eye; So nice her art in impious pharmacy.” Old Gerarde tells us that Circe made use in her incantations and witchcrafts of the Mullein or Hag-taper (_Verbascum Thapsus_); and Gower relates of Medea that she employed the Feldwode, which is probably the same plant, its Anglo-Saxon name being _Feldwyrt_. “Tho toke she Feldwode and Verveine, Of herbes ben nought better tweine.” The composition of philtres, and the working of spells and incantations to induce love, are amongst the most highly prized of witches’ functions, investing them with a power which they delight to wield, and leading to much pecuniary profit. In Moore’s ‘Light of the Haram,’ the Enchantress Namouna, who was acquainted with all spells and talismans, instructs Nourmahall to gather at midnight--“the hour that scatters spells on herb and flower”--certain blossoms that, when twined into a wreath, should act as a spell to recall her Selim’s love. The flowers gathered, the Enchantress proceeds to weave the magic chaplet, singing the while-- “I know where the wing’d visions dwell That around the night-bed play; I know each herb and floweret’s bell, Where they hide their wings by day; Then hasten we, maid, To twine our braid, To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade. “The image of love, that nightly flies To visit the bashful maid; Steals from the Jasmine flower, that sighs Its soul, like her, in the shade. The dream of a future happier hour, That alights on misery’s brow, Springs out of the silvery Almond flower That blooms on a leafless bough. “The visions that oft to worldly eyes The glitter of mines unfold, Inhabit the mountain herb that dyes The tooth of the fawn like gold. The phantom shapes--oh, touch not them!-- That appal the murderer’s sight, Lurk in the fleshly Mandrake’s stem, That shrieks when pluck’d at night! “The dream of the injur’d, patient mind, That smiles at the wrongs of men, Is found in the bruis’d and wounded rind Of the Cinnamon, sweetest then. Then hasten we, maid, To twine our braid, To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade.”