Three unwrought beams were set within the close,
With cords out-stretch’d, to dry the linen clothes:
There, he beheld—whom he admir’d the most,
Going ’round the inclosure; then from post to post,
She skipp’d along, and seem’d attentively
Engaged in ranging out the drapery.
Now, stopping at a roadside shingle-gate,
He invented an excuse t’interrogate
An husbandman, in the immediate field,—
The nature of the soil, and of its yield;