With mournful Philomel I join my strain;
Of Tereus she, of Phaon I complain.
A spring there is whose silver waters show,
Clear as a glass, the shining sands below:
A flowery lotus spreads its arms above,
Shades all the banks and seems itself a grove;
Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,
Watched by the sylvan genius of the place:
Here as I lay, and swelled with tears the flood
Before my sight a watery virgin stood: