Holy Sonnet IX: If Poisonous Minerals, And If That Tree

1If poisonous minerals, and if that tree

2Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,

3If lecherous goats, if serpents envious

4Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?

5Why should intent or reason, born in me,

6Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?

7And Mercy being easy, and glorious

8To God; in his stern wrath, why threatens he?

9But who am I, that dare dispute with thee

10O God? Oh! of thine only worthy blood,

11And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood,

12And drown in it my sin's black memory;

13That thou remember them, some claim as debt,

14I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.