• Work is its own best earthly meed, Else have we none more than the sea-born throng Who wrought those marvellous isles that bloom afar.

    Jean Ingelow: Work is its own best earthly meed,
Else have we none more than the sea-born throng
Who wrought those marvellous isles that bloom afar.
    Jean Ingelow (1873). “The Poetical Works of Jean Ingelow”, p.232