My poor father and mother came out of the country, thinking to better themselves; instead of that, they found nothing but cold and hunger, and toil and moil.
"The Nether World"
George Gissing
Wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth, The moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stone Were the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth, And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.
"Poems"
W. B. Yeats
We don't moil and toil to ourselves alone; the palace or the poor-house is not merely for ourselves, but for our children, whom we've brought up in the superstition that having and shining is the chief good.
"A Hazard of New Fortunes, Part Fifth"
William Dean Howells