And in this stream thy youthful limbs were borne,
Dear stream, I drink thy waters for his sake;
And on this grass, and by this flowering thorn,
His noon-day couch, we murmur’d half awake:
River, why flow’st thou on, so placid gleaming?
Why waves the grass its green and nymph-like hair?
Why both so tender and complacent seeming,
When he is gone who made you trebly fair?
Warm not thy waters with the love he gave,
O all unconscious or ungrateful stream?
Here would he sit, tempting the lazy wave,
With feet, whose ivory shamed some mermaid’s dream:
’Tis I, not nature, err; she clasps her child,
And wins divinely, even as then she smiled.