Margaret, your "Blockheads" quote is a wonderful example of how the speech of daily life can be more poetic than poetry. Maybe the urge to be colloquial in our verse assumes a stereotype of ordinary language as weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable; if we really listened, we'd find that living speech throws off sparks and flames, and we'd be endlessly busy trying to capture the fireworks in ink, no need for fiddle-faddle.
(Aside to Janet: a couple of people have commented on my website, but I'm not aware of having one. Still, if there's something out there under my name and people like it, I'll not argue.)
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