Volume 3 — SONNET LX.[90]

Why view’st thou, Edwy, with disdainful mien, The little Naiad of the Downton wave, High ’mid the rocks, where her clear waters lave The circling, gloomy basin?—In such scene, Silent, sequester’d, few demand, I ween, That last perfection Phidian chissels gave. Dimly the soft and musing form is seen In the hush’d shelly, shadowy, lone concave.— As sleeps her pure, tho’ darkling fountain there I love to recollect her, stretch’d supine Upon its mossy brink, with pendent hair, As dripping o’er the flood.—Ah! well combine Such gentle graces, modest, pensive, fair, To aid the magic of her watry shrine.