Overheard on a SaltmarshNymph, nymph, what are your beads?Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?Give them me.No.Give them me. Give them me.No.Then I will howl all night in the reeds,Lie in the mud and howl for them.Goblin, why do you love them so?They are better than stars or water,Better than voices of winds that sing,Better than any man's fair daughter,Your green glass beads on a silver ring.Hush, I stole them out of the moon.Give me your beads, I want them.No.I will howl in the deep lagoonFor your green glass beads, I love them so.Give them me. Give them.No.

~ Harold Monro

Harold Monro Beads Beauty Desire Goblin Nymph Possession

And I thought to myself how those fast little articles forget everything, everything, while we, old lovers, treasure every inch of their nymphancy

~ Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov Fast Little Articles Lolita Love Lovers Nymph

...you are not what you seem - you're a Sylph - you leave and the air retains your image - you haunt me...

~ John Geddes

John Geddes Nymph Supernatural Sylph

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv'st unseenWithin thy airy shellBy slow Meander's margent green,And in the violet-imbroider'd valeWhere the love-lorn nightingaleNightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pairThat likest thy Narcissus are?

~ John Milton

John Milton Melancholy Mythology Nymph Ovid