Classic Poem

From his Latin epitaph in the Cloisters of Winchester College

Here lies John Chalkhill: years two score,
A Fellow here, and then, no more!
Long life, of chaste and sober mood,
Of silence and of solitude;
Of plenteous alms, of plenteous prayer,
Of sanctity and inward care:
So lived the Church's early fold,
So saintly anchorites of old.
A little child, he did begin
The Heaven of Heavens by storm to win:
At eighty years he entered in.