Fasting: to fill the platter high with fish?

Image source: GunnJerkins

Don't let Herrick's spelling and lean verse keep you from feasting on his insight here...

To Keep a True Lent

Is this a fast, to keep
The larder leane?
And cleane
From fat of veales and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?

Is it to faste an houre,
Or ragg'd to go,
Or show
A downcast look, and sowre?

No: 'tis a fast, to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat
Unto the hungry soule.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate,
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.

To shew a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that's to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick - 17th century

And here, wisdom from another poet...

In order to possess what you do not possess,
You must go by way of dispossession.

T. S. Eliot





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