Employment

He that is weary, let him sit.
My soul would stir
And trade in courtesies and wit,
Quitting the fur
To cold complexions needing it.

Man is no star, but a quick coal
Of mortal fire:
Who blows it not, nor doth control
A faint desire,
Lets his own ashes choke his soul.

When th' elements did for place contest
With him, whose will
Ordain'd the highest to be best;
The earth sat still,
And by the others is opressed.

Life is a business, not good cheer;
Ever in wars.
The sun still shineth there or here,
Whereas the stars
Watch an advantage to appear.

O that I were an Orange-tree,
That busy plant!
Then should I ever laden be,
And never want
Some fruit for him that dressed me.

But we are still too young or old;
The man is gone,
Before we do our wares unfold:
So we freeze on,
Until the grave increase our cold.

George Herbert, 1633

Herbert's weariest poem. The brash confidence of the opening verse is trodden down as the poem progresses till it stops dead in the frozen earth. Life is a business, or "Life is Business", as our modern ears naturally hear it, although the use of "business" to mean specifically commercial transactions does not predate the 18th century, according to the OED, and that makes obvious historical sense. It was used in Herbert's time to refer to a person's occupation or daily activity, and that might include buying and selling. However prior to the 17th century, "business" seems also to have meant "anxiety" or "source of anxiety and concern", and this sense has perhaps survived in expressions like "it's a bad business..." or "what a terrible business!" (Expressions reminiscent of an Edwardian period drama - a murder-mystery probably - but perhaps people still use them.) That sense of "business" is the earliest cited in the OED, from 950, translated in the source as the Latin solicitudinem, but by the 17th century it seems to have to have been used in a more neutral sense: serious occupation or public affairs, as opposed to having a good time, or "cheer".

Whereas the stars/Watch an advantage to appear... again, one thinks of business in the modern sense, and in fact a sense of "advantage" as commercial advantage, or "pecuniary profit" was active in the 17th century. "Another fleet... had fallen upon the Molucca islands, bringing away great advantage" (Grotius's Low-Countrey Warrs, 1665, cited in the OED)