The Works of William Mason :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ye green hair'd Nymphs, whom Pan's decrees
Have given to guard this solemn wood,
To speed the shooting scions into trees,
And call the roseate blossom from the bud,
Attend. But chief, thou Naiad, wont to lead
This fluid crystal sparkling as it flows,
Whither, ah, whither art thou fled?
What shade is conscious to thy woes?
Ah, 'tis yon poplars' awful gloom:
Poetic eyes can pierce the scene;
Can see thy drooping head, thy withering bloom;
See grief diffused o'er all thy languid mien.
Well may'st thou wear misfortune's fainting air
Well rend those flow'ry honours from thy brow;

Devolve that length of careless hair;
And give thine azure veil to flow
Loose to the wind: for, oh, thy pain
The pitying Muse can well relate:
That pitying Muse shall breathe her tend'rest strain,
To teach the echoes thy disastrous fate.
'Twas, where yon beeches' crowding branches closed,
What time the dog-star's flames intensely burn,
In gentle indolence composed,
Reclined upon thy trickling urn,
Slumb'ring thou lay'st, all free from fears;
No friendly dream foretold thine harm;
When sudden, see, the tyrant Art appears,
To snatch the liquid treasures from thine arm.
Art, Gothic Art, has seized thy darling vase:
That vase which silver-slipper'd Thetis gave,
For some soft story told with grace,
Among the associates of the wave;
When, in sequester'd coral vales,
While worlds of waters roll'd above,
The circling sea-nymphs told alternate tales
Of fabled changes, and of slighted love.
Ah! loss too justly mourn'd: for now the fiend
Has on yon shell-wrought terrace pois'd it high;
And thence he bids its streams descend,
With torturing regularity.
From step to step, with sullen sound,
The forc'd cascades indignant leap;

Now sinking fill the bason's measur'd round;
There in a dull stagnation doom'd to sleep.
Where now the vocal pebbles' gurgling song?
The rill slow-dripping from its rocky spring?
What free meander winds along,
Or curls when Zephyr waves his wing?
Alas, these glories are no more:
Fortune, oh, give me to redeem
The ravish'd vase; oh, give me to restore
Its ancient honours to this hapless stream.
Then, Nymph, again, with all their wonted ease,
Thy wanton waters, volatile and free,
Shall wildly warble, as they please,
Their soft, loquacious harmony.
Where Thou and Nature bid them rove,
There will I gently aid their way;
Whether to darken in the shadowy grove,
Or, in the mead, reflect the dancing ray.
For thee too, Goddess, o'er that hallow'd spot,
Where first thy fount of chrystal bubbles bright,
These hands shall arch a rustic grot,
Impervious to the garish light.
I'll not demand of Ocean's pride
To bring his coral spoils from far:
Nor will I delve yon yawning mountain's side,
For latent minerals rough, or polish'd spar:
But antique roots, with ivy dark o'ergrown,
Steep'd in the bosom of thy chilly lake,

Thy touch shall turn to living stone;
And these the simple roof shall deck.
Yet grant one melancholy boon:
Grant that, at evening's sober hour,
Led by the lustre of the rising moon,
My step may frequent tread thy pebbled floor.
There, if perchance I wake the love lorn theme,
In melting accents querulously slow,
Kind Naiad, let thy pitying stream
With wailing notes accordant flow:
So shalt thou sooth this heaving heart,
That mourns a faithful virgin lost;
So shall thy murmurs, and my sighs impart
Some share of pensive pleasure to her ghost.

This Ode was written in the year 1747, and published in the first volume of Mr. Dodsley's Miscellany. It is here revised throughout, and concluded according to the Author's original idea.

A seat near ------ finely situated, with a great command of water; but disposed in a very false taste.