Thee too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there, Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair, And heard thy everlasting yawn confess The Pains and Penalties of Idleness.
I rather would entreat thy company, To see the wonders of the world abroad Than living, dully sluggardized at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
Their only labour was to kill the time; And labour 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 steps and slow.
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.
Sir Aubrey de Vere, A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and Sonnets.
For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.
'Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain: "You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again"; As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed, Turns his sides, and his shoulders and his heavy head.
