| |
| WHEN thou hast spent the lingring daye | |
| In pleasure and delight, | |
| Or after toyle and wearie waye | |
| Dost seeke to rest at nighte: | |
| Unto thy paynes or pleasures past | 5 |
| Adde thys one labor yet, | |
| Ere sleepe close vp thyne eie too fast, | |
| Doo not thy God forget. | |
| |
| But searche within thy secret thought, | |
| What deeds did thee befall; | 10 |
| And if thou find amisse in ought, | |
| To God for mercie call. | |
| Yea, though thou find nothing amisse, | |
| Which thou canst call to mind, | |
| Yet euermore remember this, | 15 |
| There is the more behind. | |
| |
| And thinke, how well so euer it be | |
| That thou hast spent the daye, | |
| It came of God, and not of thee, | |
| So to direct thy waye. | 20 |
| Thus if thou trie thy dayly deedes, | |
| And pleasure in thys payne, | |
| Thy life shall clense thy corne from weeds, | |
| And thine shal be the gaine. | |
| |
| But if thy sinfull sluggishe eye | 25 |
| Will venter for to winke, | |
| Before thy wading will maye trye | |
| How far thy soule maye sinke; | |
| Beware and wake, for else thy bed, | |
| Which soft and smoth is made, | 30 |
| May heape more harm vpon thy head, | |
| Than blowes of enmies’ blade. | |
| |
| Thus if this paine procure thine ease | |
| In bed as thou doost lye, | |
| Perhaps it shall not God displease | 35 |
| To sing thus soberly— | |
| I see that sleepe is lent me here | |
| To ease my wearie bones, | |
| As death at laste shall eeke appeere, | |
| To ease my greeuous grones. * * * * * * * | 40 |
| The stretching armes, the yauning breath, | |
| Which I to bedward vse, | |
| Are patternes of the pangs of death, | |
| When life will me refuse: | |
| And of my bed eche sundrye part | 45 |
| In shaddowes doth resemble | |
| The sundry shapes of deth, whose dart | |
| Shal make my flesh to tremble. | |
| |
| My bed it selfe is like the graue, | |
| My sheetes the winding sheete, | 50 |
| My cloths the mould which I must haue | |
| To couer me most meete: | |
| The waking cock, that early crowes | |
| To weare the night awaye, | |
| Puts in my minde the trumpe that blowes | 55 |
| Before the latter daye. | |
| |
| And as I ryse vp lustily, | |
| When sluggish sleep is past, | |
| So hope I to ryse ioyfully | |
| To judgment at the last. | 60 |
| Thus will I wake, thus will I sleepe, | |
| Thus will I hope to ryse; | |
| Thus will I neither waile nor weepe, | |
| But sing in godly wyse. | |
| |
| My bones shall in this bed remaine, | 65 |
| My soule in God shall trust; | |
| By whome I hope to ryse againe | |
| From death and earthlie dust. | |
| |
