Musidora: The Bather ’At The Doubtful Breeze Alarmed’

William Etty (English, 1787-1849) - Musidora: The Bather ’At The Doubtful Breeze Alarmed’, 1846 (Oil on canvas. Tate. From James Thomson’s The Seasons, 1730)

“How durst thou risk the soul-distracting view
As from her naked limbs of glowing white,
Harmonious swelled by nature’s finest hand,
In folds loose-floating fell the fainter lawn,
And fair exposed she stood, shrunk from herself,
With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze
Alarmed, and starting like the fearful fawn?
Then to the flood she rushed.”