Beside this living picture stood a maiden passing fair
With soft round arms exposed; a fourth with free and graceful air,
Like Dian when the bounding hart she tracks through morning dew,
Bared through the opening of her robes her lovely limbs to view.
And oh! the image of her charms, as clouds in heaven above,
Mirrored by streams, left on my soul the stamp of hopeless love.
And slumbering near them others lay, on beds of sweetest flowers,
The dusky petaled violet, the rose of Paphian bowers.
The inula and saffron flower, which on their garments cast,
And veils, such hues as deck the sky when day is ebbing fast;