Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound;
	All at her work the village maiden sings;
	Nor as she turns the giddy wheel around,
	Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.

Gifford.    

	Of little use, the man you may suppose,
	Who says in verse what others say in prose;
	Yet let me show a poet’s of some weight,
	And (though no soldier) useful to the state,
	What will a child learn sooner than a song?
	What better teach a foreigner the tongue?
	What’s long or short, each accent where to place
	And speak in public with some sort of grace?

Pope.    

	I was a poet too; but modern taste
	Is so refined and delicate and chaste,
	That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
	Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
	Thus, all success depending on an ear,
	And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
	If sentiment were sacrific’d to sound,
	And truth cut short to make a period round,
	I judg’d a man of sense could scarce do worse
	Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.

Cowper.