Epigram 17: What matter ist, how men their dayes

What matter ist, how men their dayes do spend,
So good report doe on their deaths attend:
Though in thy former life thou nere didst good,
But mad'st Religion for thy faults a hood,
And all blacke sinnes were harbourd in thy breast,
And tooke thy Conscience for their natiue nest:
Yet at thy buriall for a noble price,
Shalt haue a Sermon made, shall hide thy vice.
A threed-bare Parson shall thy prayse out-powre,
And in the expiration of an howre,
Will make the world thy honesty applaud,
And to thy passed life become a Baud.
Our Christian brother heere lyes dead (quoth he)
Who was the patterne of true Charity:
No Drunkard, Whoremonger, nor no vile swearer,
No greedy Vsurer, nor no Rent-rearer.
O deare beloued his example take,
And thus an end at this time doe I make.
Thus Mr. Parson nobly spends his breath,
To make a Villaine honest after death.
And for one noble, freely he affoords,
Much more then twenty shillings-worth of words.