Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is composed of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou would allow
To every Corporation.
The humble soul composed of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree.
He says, in things which use has justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.
True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.
Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fullness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodness of the deed.
Neither ought other men’s abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; left by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.
It’s true, we cannot reach Christs forti’th day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better then to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior’s purity;
Yet are we bid, Be holy ev’n as He.
In both, let’s do our best.
Who goes in the way which Christ has gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, then one
That travels byways;
Perhaps my God, though He be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast,
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.
*spellings modernized
George Herbert, from The Temple
Locus Communis 