There shall he love when genial morn appears,

Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 95.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,

What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;

To wast long nights in pensive discontent;

To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;

To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;

To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;

To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,

To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.

Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,

That doth his life in so long tendance spend!

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Mother Hubberds Tale. Line 895.

While pensive poets painful vigils keep,

Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dunciad. Book i. Line 93.

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,

Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Laodamia.