Sonnet LX.[1]

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.