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 ...

¶ On Death.

SInce nothing is so certain as our death, And nothing more uncertain than when breath Expires, we ought each minute to prepare: Death sends no Summons, but comes unaware. The grand decry is past; dispute not why All men have sinned, and all men must die. Man's days are numbred, he can finde no aid; 'Tis God hath man upon the balance laid, And found him wanting. God's all-searching eye Hath thus determin'd, men are Vanity. Corruption is man's father, and the Worms His sisters, they have their corrupt conforms. The Grave it is his Bed, the Sheet his Shrine, The Earth his Cover, Grass his Carpet fine. At last Death comes, and he concludes the Theam, Finds man asleep, and darts him in his Dream. Such is our sluggish life, a shadow, frail, A bubble, vapour, and a trifling tale: So vain a story, that when we grow old We spend our days before the tale is told. The World's of contraries a vast compound, Nothing within it solid is, or sound. Four Elements in opposition move Each to the other. The degrees of Love Cannot be found in a con•…•…used heap; 'Tis Heaven doth that holy Order keep. Death gives our earthly bodies a new cast, Refines us, that we may prove cleer at last. What is corrupt, within the grave must lie, Till Mortal puts on Immortality. No mans corruption can be laid aside, Until his body in the Earth abide. He chiefly 'tis that is afeard to die, Hath little hope of an Eternity.

The time we have to live, it is but small, Less than a point that's Geometrical. Our common Enemy doth promise fair This world, to cheat us of a world more rare. Our pleasures do deceitfully entangle, Smiling ev'n then, when they intend to strangle. The world is kindest when it most doth frown, And honours list us up to cast us down. The Christian then should ready be to cry, When God shall call, Behold, Lord, here am I. For they of their Salvation never mist, Have been partakers of the death of Christ. God on the Righteous alway hath an eye; His ear is ever open to their cry: And he that doth a righteous man regard, He shall receive a righteous man's reward. Be truly zealous, shew no vain pretext, But live each hour as if to die the next.