O Life! how pleasant is thy morning,

Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!

Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,

We frisk away,

Like schoolboys at th' expected warning,

To joy and play.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle to James Smith.

Come in the evening, or come in the morning;

Come when you 're looked for, or come without warning.

Thomas O. Davis (1814-1845): The Welcome.

Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man,

Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,

Show to his eye an image of the pangs

Which it hath witnessed,—render back an echo

Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Excursion. Book vi.

Life! we 've been long together

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

'T is hard to part when friends are dear,—

Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not "Good night," but in some brighter clime

Bid me "Good morning."

Mrs Barbauld (1743-1825): Life.