Still as it faded: “Come with us, O follow!”
The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure
Lock round his limbs, and bear him, vainly striving,
Down from the noonday brightness. “Leave me, Naiads!
Leave me!” he cried; “the day to me is dearer
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean’s quiet.
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure:
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms and shocked by Jove’s dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.”