Begone, dull Care! I prithee begone from me!

Begone, dull Care! thou and I shall never agree.

Playford: Musical Companion. (1687.)

Alas! regardless of their doom,

The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,

Nor care beyond to-day.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 6.

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 300.

Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter;

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,

Which busy care draws in the brains of men;

Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

What is your sex's earliest, latest care,

Your heart's supreme ambition? To be fair.

Lord Lyttleton (1709-1773): Advice to a Lady.

The Lord my pasture shall prepare,

And feed me with a shepherd's care;

His presence shall my wants supply,

And guard me with a watchful eye.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Spectator. No. 444.

Let the world slide, let the world go;

A fig for care, and a fig for woe!

If I can't pay, why I can owe,

And death makes equal the high and low.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Be Merry Friends.

If naebody care for me,

I 'll care for naebody.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): I hae a Wife o' my Ain.

And this the burden of his song

Forever used to be,—

I care for nobody, no, not I,

If no one cares for me.

Isaac Bickerstaff (1735-1787): Love in a Village. Act i. Sc. 2.

In misery's darkest cavern known,

His useful care was ever nigh

Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan,

And lonely want retir'd to die.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 5.

If she seem not chaste to me,

What care I how chaste she be?

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Poem.

If she undervalue me,

What care I how fair she be?

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Poem.

Shall I, wasting in despair,

Die because a woman's fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care,

'Cause another's rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day,

Or the flowery meads in May,

If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?

George Wither (1588-1667): The Shepherd's Resolution.

Happy am I; from care I'm free!

Why ar' n't they all contented like me?

Opera of La Bayadère.

And is there care in Heaven? And is there love

In heavenly spirits to these Creatures bace?

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto viii. St. 1.

I am sure care's an enemy to life.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3.

Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,

And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashioned so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): The Bridge of Sighs.

Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,

And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Shall I, wasting in despair,

Die because a woman's fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care,

'Cause another's rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day,

Or the flowery meads in May,

If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?

George Wither (1588-1667): The Shepherd's Resolution.

Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;

I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Fain Would I.

Memory, the warder of the brain.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 1.

You have too much respect upon the world:

They lose it that do buy it with much care.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

There's nae sorrow there, John,

There's neither cauld nor care, John,

The day is aye fair,

In the land o' the leal.

Lady Nairne (1766-1845): The Land o' the Leal.

Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,

And every grin so merry draws one out.

John Wolcot (1738-1819): Expostulatory Odes. Ode xv.

I could lie down like a tired child,

And weep away the life of care

Which I have borne, and yet must bear.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples. Stanza 4.

Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows,

And the fresh flow'ret pluck ere it close;

Why are we fond of toil and care?

Why choose the rankling thorn to wear?

J M Usteri (1763-1827): Life let us cherish.

Hang sorrow! care 'll kill a cat.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3.

Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,

And therefore let's be merry.

George Wither (1588-1667): Poem on Christmas.

He wales a portion with judicious care;

And "Let us worship God," he says with solemn air.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): The Cotter's Saturday Night.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

Come and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 31.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): To Delia. Sonnet 51.