With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. Not till the hours of light return, All we have built do we discern.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems,'Morality'.

   Let 'Dig for Victory' be the motto of everyone with a garden and of every able-bodied man and woman capable of digging an allotment in their spare time.

-Doram-Smith, Sir Reginald Hugh
  Radio broadcast, 3 Oct.

   Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it.

-Heaney, SeamusJustin
  Death of a Naturalist,'Digging'.