Sonnet 60. Why view'st thou, Edwy, with disdainful mien 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.
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.
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