To a Sea-Nymph

To a Sea-Nymph

O nymph! Who loves to float on the green wave,
When Neptune sleeps beneath the moon-light hour,
Lull’d by the music’s melancholy pow’r,
O nymph, arise from out thy pearly cave!

For Hesper beams amid the twilight shade,
And soon shall Cynthia tremble o’er the tide,
Gleam on these cliffs, that bound the ocean’s pride,
And lonely silence all the air pervade.

Then, let thy tender voice at distance swell,
And steal along this solitary shore,
Sink on the breeze, till dying – heard no more –
Though wak’st the sudden magic of thy shell.

While the long coast in echo sweet replies,
Thy soothing strains the pensive heart beguile,
And bid the visions of the future smile,
O nymph! From out thy pearly cave – arise!

‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, Ann Radcliffe (1794), p. 420

Art1: Anon, St. Petersburg Russia
Art2: Bulfinch, 1897