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Tho' we earn our bread, Tom, By the dirty pen, What we can we will be, Honest Englishmen. Do the work that's nearest Though it's dull at whiles, Helping, when we meet them, Lame dogs over stiles.

For men must work and women must weep, And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep, And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind wave break in fire. He shall fulfill God's utmost will, unknowing His desire, And he shall see old planets pass and alien stars arise, And give the gale his reckless sail in shadow of new skies. Strong lust of gear shall drive him out and hunger arm his hand, To wring his food from a desert nude, his foothold from the sand.

But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, We will work for ourself and a woman, for ever and ever, Amen.

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They Are!

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed--they know the angels are on their side: They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied; They sit at the Feet, they hear the Word, they see how truly the Promise runs; They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and--the Lord He lays it on Martha's sons!

I am gradually approaching the period in my life when work comes first. . . . No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes.

Who first invented work, and bound the free And holyday-rejoicing spirit down . . . To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . Sabbathless Satan!

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done: the worst is that which delays them.

Unemployment, with its injustice for the man who seeks and thirsts for employment, who begs for labour and cannot get it, and who is punished for failure he is not responsible for by the starvation of his children--that torture is something that private enterprise ought to remedy for its own sake.

Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others.

No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him: there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hand of toil!

God be thank'd that the dead have left still Good undone for the living to do-- Still some aim for the heart and the will And the soul of a man to pursue.

Work divided is in that manner shortened.

Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumb-bells? To dig a vineyard is a worthier exercise for men.

Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed.

The work under our labour grows Luxurious by restraint.

I am nothing and to nothing tend, On earth I nothing have and nothing claim, Man's noblest works must have one common end, And nothing crown the tablet of his name.

Study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

The uselessness of men above sixty years of age and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, in political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.