'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."
The Sluggard. DR. I. WATTS.
Sloth views the towers of fame with envious eyes,
Desirous still, still impotent to rise.
The Judgment of Hercules. W. SHENSTONE.
Their only labor was to kill the time
(And labor dire it is, and weary woe);
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme;
Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go,
Or saunter forth, with tottering step and slow:
This soon too rude an exercise they find;
Straight on the couch their limbs again they throw,
Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined,
And court the vapory god, soft breathing in the wind.
The Castle of Indolence, Canto I. J. THOMSON.
Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels,
How heavily we drag the load of life!
Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain,
It makes us wander, wander earth around
To fly that tyrant, thought.
Night Thoughts, Night II. DR. E. YOUNG.
To sigh, yet feel no pain,
To weep, yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with Beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by.
The Blue Stocking. T. MOORE.
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.
The Giaour. LORD BYRON.
A lazy lolling sort,
Unseen at church, at senate, or at court,
Of ever-listless idlers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend.
There too, my Paridell! she marked thee there,
Stretched on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
The Dunciad, Bk. IV. A. POPE.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
As useless if it goes as if it stands.
Retirement. W. COWPER.
There is no remedy for time misspent;
No healing for the waste of idleness,
Whose very languor is a punishment
Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.
Sonnet. SIR A. DE VERE.
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
Song XX. DR. I. WATTS.