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.
1: The above Sonnet was addressed to a Friend, who had fastidiously
despised, because he did not think it exquisite sculpture, the Statue
of a Water-Nymph in Mr. Knight's singular, and beautiful Cold Bath at
Downton Castle near Ludlow. It rises amidst a Rotunda, formed by
Rocks, and covered with shells, and fossils, in the highest elevation
of that mountainous and romantic Scene.