Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as,

And yet he semed besier than he was.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 323.

How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Divine Songs. Song xx.

In busy companies of men.

Andrew Marvell (1620-1678): The Garden. (Translated.)

Busy, curious, thirsty fly,

Drink with me, and drink as I.

William Oldys (1696-1761): On a Fly drinking out of a Cup of Ale.

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.

In the busy haunts of men.

John Keble (1792-1866): Tale of the Secret Tribunal. Part i.

Tower'd cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 117.

Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace

The day's disasters in his morning face;

Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee

At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;

Full well the busy whisper circling round

Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.

Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught,

The love he bore to learning was in fault;

The village all declar'd how much he knew,

'T was certain he could write and cipher too.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 199.

Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Quatrains. Nature.

How various his employments whom the world

Calls idle, and who justly in return

Esteems that busy world an idler too!

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 352.