Summary

Three people sit together and talk about the nature of poetry. The speaker says that a single line may take hours of work, but if it doesn’t appear effortless, that work has been for nothing. It’s better, they explain, to work as a kitchen maid or a manual laborer, because writing poetry is even more labor-intensive than these; and yet, the brash and noisy people thought to epitomize society, such as bankers, teachers, and priests, would call writing poetry a lazy job.

In response, one of the speaker’s companions — a beautiful and sweet woman who has broken many hearts — explains that beautifying oneself is an equally trying task. The speaker retorts that since the Fall of Adam in the bible, everything that’s worthwhile has required hard work. For instance, some labor in courting those they love with quotes from old...