In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when the moon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening shipper hears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a wonderfully charming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with sorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by the
Nymph."
The only other considerable hymn is that to "Pan", which describes how he roams hunting among the mountains and thickets and streams, how he makes music at dusk while returning from the chase, and how he joins in dancing with the
nymphs who sing the story of his birth.
The sweet nymphs, who had sported with me before on the lake, now all fled its vicinity.
One morning I expressed to my faithful servitor my desire for the return of the nymphs. The honest fellow looked at me bewildered for a moment,, and then shook his head solemnly, and murmured 'taboo!
nymph, who - ' After 'who' I should place a verb in the second person singular of the present indicative; and should go on thus: 'this grot profound.'"
"Oh, nymph, who quittest now this grot profound, To admire the greatest king of all kings round."
This is the haven of the old merman Phorcys, and here is the olive tree that grows at the head of it; [near it is the cave sacred to the Naiads;] {122} here too is the overarching cavern in which you have offered many an acceptable hecatomb to the nymphs, and this is the wooded mountain Neritum."
Then Ulysses rejoiced at finding himself again in his own land, and kissed the bounteous soil; he lifted up his hands and prayed to the nymphs, saying, "Naiad nymphs, daughters of Jove, I made sure that I was never again to see you, now therefore I greet you with all loving salutations, and I will bring you offerings as in the old days, if Jove's redoubtable daughter will grant me life, and bring my son to manhood."
"The sea nymphs are good creatures, and will never lead you into any harm.
The child promised to be as prudent as if she were a grown-up woman; and, by the time the winged dragons had whirled the car out of sight, she was already on the shore, calling to the sea nymphs to come and play with her.
"O no, dear Proserpina," cried the sea nymphs; "we dare not go with you upon the dry land.
"We will wait, then," answered the sea nymphs. "But while you are gone, we may as well lie down on a bank of soft sponge under the water.
She was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together.
Don Quixote asked one of the
nymphs who it was that had composed and arranged it.
Cropole, to make amends to his painter-in-ordinary, hung up the
nymphs of the preceding sign in his bedroom, which made Madame Cropole blush every time she looked at it, when she was undressing at night.
