Classic Poem

When thou hast spent the lingring day in pleasure and delight,
Or after toyle and wearie waye, dost seeke to rest at nighte:
Unto thy paynes or pleasures past, adde this one labour yet,
Ere sleepe close up thyne eye to fast, do not thy God forget,
But searche within thy secret thoughts, what deeds did thee befal:
And if thou find amisse in ought, to God for mercy call.
Yea though thou find nothing amisse, which thou canst cal to mind,
Yet ever more remember this, there is the more behind:
And thinke how well so ever it be, that thou hast spent the daye,
It came of God, and not of thee, so to direct thy waye.
Thus if thou trie thy dayly deedes, and pleasure in this payne,
Thy life shall clense thy corne from weeds, & thine shal be the gaine:
But if thy sinfull sluggishe eye, will venter for to winke,
Before thy wading will may trye, how far thy soule maye sinke,
Beware and wake, for else thy bed, which soft & smoth is made,
May heape more harm upon thy head, than blowes of enmies blade.
Thus if this paine procure thine ease, in bed as thou doest lye,
Perhaps it shall not God displease, to sing thus soberly:
I see that sleepe is lent me here, to ease my wearye bones,
As death at laste shall eke appeere, to ease my greevous grones.
My dayly sportes, my panch full fed, have causde my drousie eye,
As carelesse life in quiet led, might cause my soule to dye:
The stretching armes, the yauning breath, which I to bedward use,
Are patternes of the pangs of death, when life will me refuse:
And of my bed eche sundrye part in shaddowes doth resemble,
The sundry shapes of deth, whose dart shal make my flesh to tremble.
My bed it selfe is like the grave, my sheetes the winding sheete,
My clothes the mould which I must have, to cover me most meete:
The hungry fleas which friske so freshe, to wormes I can compare,
Which greedily shall gnaw my fleshe, & leave the bones ful bare:
The waking Cock that early crowes to weare the night awaye,
Puts in my minde the trumpe that blowes before the latter day.
And as I ryse up lustily, when sluggish sleepe is past,
So hope I to rise joyfully, to Judgement at the last.
Thus wyll I wake, thus wyll I sleepe, thus wyl I hope to ryse,
Thus wyll I neither waile nor weepe, but sing in godly wyse.
My bones shall in this bed remaine, my soule in God shall trust,
By whome I hope to ryse againe from death and earthly dust.
Haud ictus sapio