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 chisels 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.