They scrap’d the noisy tenor for their bread:

Yet still the blind from insult to protect,

Some faithful consort ever wandering nigh,

With vary’d garb, and uncouth’d pinner deck’d,

Implores the passing tribute with a sigh.

Her ditties oft, though an unletter’d Muse

The place of air and sonnet would supply;

And songs of grace at Christmas would she chuse,

Repaid with luncheons from the grey-goose pye.

For who, so much to gloominess a prey,