That your bright forms at once congeals and thaws.

"Scorn not the crystal ball, a worth it owns,

Greater than graven Erythrean stones;

Rude though it seems, a formless mass of ice,

'Tis justly counted 'mongst our gems of price."

And so on through several others, until he comes to that one which seems to indicate something beyond a merely figurative use of the word "nymphs;" though, after all, it is possible that the word was originally written with an l, instead of n, which would make all the difference between "nymphs" and "waters":—

"While the soft boy the slippery crystal turns,

To touch the waters in their icy urns,

Safe in its depths translucent he beholds

The nymphs, unconscious of the winter colds: