| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | Divine Poems
Holy Sonnets | | IX. “If poisonous minerals, and if that tree” |
| | | IF poisonous 1 minerals, and if that tree, | |
| Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us, | |
| If lecherous goats, if serpents envious | |
| Cannot be damn’d, alas! why should I be? | |
| Why should intent or reason, born in me, | 5 |
| Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous? | |
| And, mercy being easy, and glorious | |
| To God, in His stern wrath why threatens He? | |
| But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee? | |
| O God, O! of Thine only worthy blood, | 10 |
| And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood, | |
| And drown in it my sin’s black memory. | |
| That Thou remember them, some claim as debt; | |
| I think it mercy if Thou wilt forget. | |
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