Vow of poverty

(Sunday) In the morning I went to Mr. Gunning’s, where a good sermon, wherein he showed the life of Christ, and told us good authority for us to believe that Christ did follow his father’s trade, and was a carpenter till thirty years of age. From thence to my father’s to dinner, where I found my wife, who was forced to dine there, we not having one coal of fire in the house, and it being very hard frosty weather. In the afternoon my father, he going to a man’s to demand some money due to my Aunt Bell, my wife and I went to Mr. Mossum’s, where a strange doctor made a very good sermon. From thence sending my wife to my father’s, I went to Mrs. Turner’s, and staid a little while, and then to my father’s, where I found Mr. Sheply, and after supper went home together. Here I heard of the death of Mr. Palmer, and that he was to be buried at Westminster tomorrow.

the life of an author is a trade
of age for fire
one bell
and moss to be buried in


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 8 January 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)

One Reply to “Vow of poverty”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.