'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.