Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age; With lenient arts extend a mothers breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 408.
But touch me, and no minister so sore; Whoeer offends at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burden of some merry song.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 76.