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.

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain!

Take them, and give me my childhood again!

Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832-1911): Rock me to sleep.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,

Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.

War, he sung, is toil and trouble;

Honour but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying.

If all the world be worth the winning,

Think, oh think it worth enjoying:

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 97.

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,

Or surely you 'll grow double!

Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks!

Why all this toil and trouble?

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Tables Turned.

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,—

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 159.

For just experience tells, in every soil,

That those that think must govern those that toil.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 372.

From toil he wins his spirits light,

From busy day the peaceful night;

Rich, from the very want of wealth,

In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 93.

And all to leave what with his toil he won

To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 169.

No man is born into the world whose work

Is not born with him. There is always work,

And tools to work withal, for those who will;

And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): A Glance behind the Curtain.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of heaven must swell the sail,

Or all the toil is lost.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Human Frailty.

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,

Morn of toil nor night of waking.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 31.

Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil

O'er books consum'd the midnight oil?

John Gay (1688-1732): Fables. Part i. The Shepherd and the Philosopher.

From reveries so airy, from the toil

Of dropping buckets into empty wells,

And growing old in drawing nothing up.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 188.

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;

I woke, and found that life was Duty.

Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?

Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;

And thou shalt find thy dream to be

A truth and noonday light to thee.

Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1816-1841): Life a Duty.

Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;

Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;

Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

James Beattie (1735-1803): The Minstrel. Book i. Stanza 11.

For just experience tells, in every soil,

That those that think must govern those that toil.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 372.

Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound;

She feels no biting pang the while she sings;

Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,

Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.

Richard Gifford (1725-1807): Contemplation.

Ne'er

Was flattery lost on poet's ear;

A simple race! they waste their toil

For the vain tribute of a smile.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 35.

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.

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

You shall not pile, with servile toil,

Your monuments upon my breast,

Nor yet within the common soil

Lay down the wreck of power to rest,

Where man can boast that he has trod

On him that was "the scourge of God."

Edward Everett (1794-1865): Alaric the Visigoth.

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain!

Take them, and give me my childhood again!

Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832-1911): Rock me to sleep.