Her frugal fancy cull’d the smaller ware,

The weightier purchase ask’d her Reuben’s care;

Together then their last year’s gain they threw,

And lo! an auction’d bed, with curtains neat and new.

Thus both, as prudence counsell’d, wisely stay’d,

And cheerful then the calls of Love obeyed:

What if, when Rachel gave her hand, ’twas one

Embrown’d by Winter’s ice and Summer’s sun ?

What if, in Reuben’s hair the female eye

Usurping grey among the black could spy?