Sunday, February 25, 2018

Poem of the Week: To Keep a True Lent

To Keep a True Lent
 
 ROBERT HERRICK
Is this a Fast, to keep
The Larder lean?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh,
1
yet still to fill
The platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour?
No: ’tis a Fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife
And old debate,
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.
2
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
3
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

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