Wednesday, February 09, 2005

To Keep a True Lent

One of the upsides of the liturgical reform is that poems like this made it into the Breviary:
Is this a Fast, to keep
The larder lean,
And clean,
From fat of veals and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or rag'd to go
Or show
A downcast look or sour?
No; 'tis a Fast to dole
Thy sheaf or wheat
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife.
From old debate,
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent,
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that's to keep thy Lent.
— Robert Herrick

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