HIS MEDITATION UPON DEATH by ROBERT HERRICK

Be those few hours, which I have yet to spend,
Blest with the Meditation of my end:
Though they be few in number, I'm content;
If otherwise, I stand indifferent:
Nor makes it matter, Nestors yeers to tell,
If man lives long, and if he live not well.
A multitude of dayes still heaped on,
Seldome brings order, but confusion.
Might I make choice, long life sho'd be with-stood;
Nor wo'd I care how short it were, if good:
Which to effect, let ev'ry passing Bell
Possesse my thoughts, next comes my dolefull knell:
And when the night perswades me to my bed,
I'le thinke I'm going to be buried:
So shall the Blankets which come over me,
Present those Turfs, which once must cover me:
And with as firme behaviour I will meet
The sheet I sleep in, as my Winding-sheet.
When sleep shall bath his body in mine eyes,
I will believe, that then my body dies:
And if I chance to wake, and rise thereon,
I'le have in mind my Resurrection,
Which must produce me to that Gen'rall Doome,
To which the Pesant, so the Prince must come,
To heare the Judge give sentence on the Throne,
Without the least hope of affection.
Teares, at that day, shall make but weake defence;
When Hell and Horrour fright the Conscience.
Let me, though late, yet at the last, begin
To shun the least Temptation to a sin;
Though to be tempted be no sin, untill
Man to th' alluring object gives his will.
Such let my life assure me, when my breath
Goes theeving from me, I am safe in death;
Which is the height of comfort, when I fall,
I rise triumphant in my Funerall.

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