A godly Exhortation, necessary for this present time.
LEt not the dull and sluggish sleepe
close vp thy waking eye,
Vntill aright with iudgement deep,
thy dayly deedes thou trye.
He which one sinne in conscience keepes,
when he to quyet goes,
More ventrous is, then he that sleepes
with twenty mortall foes.
Therefore at night call vnto minde,
how thou the day hast spent:
Prayse God, if nought amisse thou find;
if ought, betime repent.
And sinc
[...]
[...]hy bed a patterne is
of death and fatall herse,
Toward bed it shall not be amisse,
Thus to record in verse:
My bed is like the graue so cold;
and sleepe, which shuts mine eye,
Resembles death: clothes, which me fold,
declare the mould so drye.
The byting Fleas resemble well
the wrinckling wormes to be,
Which with me in the graue shall dwel,
where I no light shall see.
The nightly bel, which I heare towle,
as I am layd in bed,
Declares, the bell shall for me knowle
and ring, when I am dead.
The rising in the morne likewise,
when sleepie night is past,
Puts mee in mind, how I shall rise
to Iudgement at the last.
I goe to bed as to my graue:
God knowes when I shall wake:
But (Lord) I trust, thou wilt me saue,
and me to mercy take.
FINIS.
Imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, dwelling in Hosier lane, neere Smithfield. 1603.