The nymphs a shepherd took To guard their snowy sheep; He led them down along the brook, And guided them with pipe and crook, Until he fell asleep.
But when the piping stayed, Across the flowery mead The milk-white nymphs ran out afraid: O Thyrsis, wake! Your flock has strayed— The nymphs a shepherd need.
Where this text comes from
First published in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920). This date is uncertain. Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (15)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L10.
Cite this poem
Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933).
“The Shepherd of Nymphs.” First published in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/henry-van-dyke-jr/the-shepherd-of-nymphs/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
More by Henry van Dyke Jr.