T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
“A Nymph When As the Summer’s Beams”
Anonymous(From Academy of Complements, c. 1650; p. 197) |
A NYMPH when as the Summer’s beams | |
| Made hot the colder air, | |
| Into a fountain’s Crystal streams, | |
| To bathe her did repair: | |
| And by degrees she boldly did at length | 5 |
| Those parts unhide: | |
| Which to be bashful, nature made | |
| So curious to be spied. | |
| Oft downward would she cast her head, | |
| And blushing look away; | 10 |
| Then twist her arms, and twine her thighs, | |
| As fearful to betray | |
| Her self unto her fearful self: | |
| Thus frighted she at last, | |
| Into the fountains swiftest streams, | 15 |
| Her purest body cast. | |
| The waves did proudly bear her up, | |
| And as she waded in the silver-brook, | |
| Seem’d not to cleanse her as she swam, | |
| But from her purifying took. | 20 |
| And underneath the Crystal streams, | |
| As she did gliding pass, | |
| She seemed like a Lily fair, | |
| That’s sunk into a glass. | |
| And as she did her dainty arms | 25 |
| In sundry sort display, | |
| Ofttimes she would Narcissus-like | |
| With her own shadow play. | |
| Oft would she lie upon her back: | |
| With legs and arms both spread, | 30 |
| And imitate those wanton joys, | |
| That women use in bed. | |
| Women their modesty forget | |
| And often lay aside; | |
| This Nymph, that thought herself unseen, | 35 |
| Was by a Shepherd spy’d: | |
| Who ravished with the sight he saw, | |
| No longer staid to woo her, | |
| But flung away his hook and scrip, | |
| And boldly stept unto her. | 40 |
| She shrieking dived, thought to have hid | |
| Herself, but all in vain, | |
| The Waters to preserve her life, | |
| Did bear her up again; | |
| The Shepherd caught her in his arms, | 45 |
| And laid her on the brink, | |
| And what he did without delay, | |
| You know, or else may think. | |