The air and manner that their swains admired;
The mother-gossip and these daughters three
Talk’d of genteel and social company,
And, while the days were fine, and walks were clean,
A fresh assemblage day by day were seen.
“There were the curate’s gentle maids, and some
From all the neighbouring villages would come;
There, as I stole the yew-tree shades among,
I saw the parties walking, old and young, 30
Where I was nothing—if perceived, they said,