'Tis strange 'at fowk will be sich fooils To mak life net worth livin', Fermentin' rows, creatin' mooils, Detractin' an' deceivin'. To fratch an' worry day an' neet, Is sewerly wilful blindness,...
What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil; Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil....
What though the heart be tired, The heart, that long aspired, And one high dream desired, Beyond attainment's scope; Beyond our grasp; above us; The dream we would have love us,...
Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer, But stubborn work; she may not shun her task. After the first compassion, none will spare Her portion and her work achieved, to ask....
Like coral insects multitudinous The minutes are whereof our life is made. They build it up as in the deep's blue shade It grows, it comes to light, and then, and thus For both there is an end. The populous...
Mine is the shape forever set between The thought and form, the vision and the deed; The hidden light, the glory all unseen, I bring to mortal senses, mortal need. ...
Not to the Arch-Idler be the honor given Of first inventing work, but to his Lord, Who made the light, the firmament of heaven, And sun and moon and planets in accord, The land and cattle on it, and the sea...
The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully her fingers feel...
Bonny lads, and bonny lasses! Work away! work away! Think how swift each moment passes, Time does never stay. Then let's up and to our labours, They who will, must sure succeed,...
Work if tha can, it's thi duty to labor; If able, show willin, - ther's plenty to do, Ther's battles to feight withaat musket or sabre, But if tha'll have pluck tha'll be safe to pool throo. ...
Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken! Keeping time is power's token. That makes one of many, many, That makes bold, if fear daunts any, That makes small the load and lighter,...
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair - The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing - And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!...
Across the street, an humble woman lives; To her 'tis little fortune ever gives; Denied the wines of life, it puzzles me To know how she can laugh so cheerily. This morn I listened to her softly sing,...
Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, Our freedom for a little bread we sell,...
Through the pale green forest of tall bracken-stalks, Whose interwoven fronds, a jade-green sky, Above me glimmer, infinitely high, Towards my giant hand a beetle walks...
World, take good notice, silver stars fading, Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching, Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,...
The troubles of life are many, The pleasures of life are few; When we sat in the sunlight, Annie, I dreamt that the skies were blue, When we sat in the sunlight, Annie,...