Walk’d and conversed with labourers at the plough;
With thrashers hastening to their daily task;
With woodmen resting o’er the enlivening flask;
And with the shepherd, watchful of his fold
Beneath the hill, and pacing in the cold.
Further afield he sometimes would proceed,
And take a path, wherever it might lead.
It led him far about to Wickham Green,
Where stood the mansion of the village queen; 10
Her garden yet its wintry blossoms bore,