Hole-y

(Lord’s day). Up betimes and to my chamber, it being a very wet day all day, and glad am I that we did not go by water to see “The Soveraigne” to-day, as I intended, clearing all matters in packing up my papers and books, and giving instructions in writing to my executors, thereby perfecting the whole business of my will, to my very great joy; so that I shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it should please the Lord to call me away this sickly time. At night to read, being weary with this day’s great work, and then after supper to bed, to rise betimes to-morrow, and to bed with a mind as free as to the business of the world as if I were not worth 100l. in the whole world, every thing being evened under my hand in my books and papers, and upon the whole I find myself worth, besides Brampton estate, the sum of 2164l., for which the Lord be praised!

the perfect hole of a state
should please the Lord

sick with work
is a mind as free as the world

as the hole under my hand
the hole I find myself to be


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 13 August 1665.

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