Quoth the maid, “What’s that to you.”
“Be these words our sign of parting, saucy maid!” I shrieked, upstarting.
“Get you back into the village, take these clothes along with you!
Leave no thread even as a token of these horrid words you’ve spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! Take these clothes which look like new,
And return to where you came from, with these clothes as clean as new!”
Quoth the maiden, “Not for you.”
So I left the washer maiden and her basket heavy laden,
And I hope that I may never, never more behold the two;
Yet my sleep is oft enchanted, and my dreams are often haunted