Richard Chenevix Trench

The Same

SWEET Water-nymph, more shy than Arethuse,
Why wilt thou hide from me thy green retreat,
Where duly thou with silver-sandalled feet,
And every Naiad, her green locks profuse,
Welcome with dance sad Evening, or unloose,
To share your revel, an oak-cinctured throng,
Oread and Dryad, who the daylight long
By rock, or cave, or antique forest, use
To shun the Wood-god and his rabble bold?
Such comes not now, or who with impious strife
Would seek to untenant meadow, stream, and plain,
Of that indwelling power which is the life
And which sustaineth each, which poets old
As god and goddess thus have loved to feign.