Gray appears to me to be indebted to Milton for a hint for the opening
of his Elegy: as in the first line he had Dante and Milton in his mind,
he perhaps might also in the following passage have recollected a
congenial one in Comus, which he altered. Milton, describing the
evening, marks it out by
---- What time the _laboured ox_
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the _swinkt hedger_ at his supper sat.