Prison-Pietie or, Meditations Divine and Moral. Digested into Poetical Heads, On Mixt and Various Subjects. Whereunto is added A Panegyrick to The Right Reverend, and most Nobly descended, Henry, Lord Bishop of London. By Samuel Speed, Prisoner in Ludgate, London |
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On Formal duty. |
 | Prison-Pietie |  |
On Formal duty.
Tradition doth of Ovid thus relate:His Father with him holding strict debate
On Poetry, commanded him rehearse
The profits (not the pleasures) of a Verse,
By words as well as frowns, did plainly threat.
Ovid, when thus in danger to be beat,
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But in his begging made this warbling Rhyme:
Father, on me pity take,
Verses I no more will make.
How many promises, Lord, do I gather,
When I in Prayer petition thee, my Father?
I promise to forsake all sinful snares,
And yet I sin, even when I say my Prayers.
The weakness of my Prayer, time being spilt
In vain, serves only to increase my guilt:
For when at Prayers I seem to wish them past,
As Jews the Pass-over did eat in hast.
Bodily-motion is the cause of heat;
But in Devotion we should sigh, not sweat.
| Prison-Pietie | |