A lake Is a river curled and asleep like a snake. - Thomas Lovell Beddoes

By female voicesWe have bathed, where none have seen us, In the lake and in the fountain, Underneath the charmèd statue
Of the timid, bending Venus, When the water-nymphs were counting
In the waves the stars of night, And those maidens started at you,
Your limbs shone through so soft and bright. But no secrets dare we tell, For thy slaves unlace thee, And he, who shall embrace thee, Waits to try thy beauty’s spell.By male voicesWe have crowned thee queen of women, Since love’s love, the rose, hath kept her Court within thy lips and blushes,
And thine eye, in beauty swimming, Kissing, we rendered up the sceptre,
At whose touch the startled soul Like an ocean bounds and gushes,
And spirits bend at thy controul. But no secrets dare we tell, For thy slaves unlace thee, And he, who shall embrace thee, Is at hand, and so farewell.

I’ll take that fainting rose
Out of his breast; perhaps some sigh of his
Lives in the gyre of its kiss-coloured leaves.
O pretty rose, hast thou thy flowery passions?
Then put thyself into a scented rage,
And breathe on me some poisonous revenge.
For it was I, thou languid, silken blush,
Who orphaned thy green family of thee,
In their closed infancy: therefore receive
My life, and spread it on thy shrunken petals,
And give to me thy pink, reclining death.

Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river-dragon stretched along,
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping
No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads,
And a small fragment of its speckled egg
Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout;
A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch
The baulking, merry flies. In the iron jaws Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul
Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew
A snowy troculus, with roseate beak
Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.