“Which his own Clerk, his Parish Clerk has wrote.”
Epitaph.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A Curate poor, to stalls and tythes unknown;
No Bishop smil’d upon his humble birth;
No Minister e’er mark’d him for his own.
Bread was his only food, his drink the brook;
So small a salary did his Rector send;
He left his laundress all he had—a book
He found in Death, ’twas all he wish’d—a friend.