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 patter high with fish?

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

No: ‘tis a fast, to dole
The 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 shrew a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick, Seventeenth century