Sonnet On Bathing

When late the trees were stript by winter pale,
Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture green,
Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen,
On airy uplands met the piercing gale ;
And, ere its earliest echo shook the vale,
Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen.
But since, gay-thron'd in fiery chariot sheen,
Summer has smote earh daisy-dappled dale ;
She to the cave retires, high-arch'd beneath
The fount that laves proud Isis' tower'd brim :
And now, all glad the temperate air to breath,
While cooling drops distill from arches dim,
Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath,
She sits amid the quire of Naiads trim.