The Poetical Works of Anna Seward With Extracts from her Literary Correspondence. Edited by Walter Scott ... In Three Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of Anna Seward |  |
181
SONNET LX.
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 chissels 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.
| The Poetical Works of Anna Seward | |