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

John Donne

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
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? Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
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.

Next 10 Poems

• John Donne : Holy Sonnet V: I Am A Little World Made Cunningly
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Vi: This Is My Play's Last Scene, Here Heavens Appoint
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Vii: At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners Blow
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Viii: If Faithful Souls Be Alike Glorified
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet X
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Xi: Spit In My Face You Jews, And Pierce My Side
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Xii: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On?
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Xiii: What If This Present Were The World's Last Night?
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Xiv

Previous 10 Poems

• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Iv: Oh My Black Soul! Now Art Thou Summoned
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Iii: O Might Those Sighs And Tears Return Again
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet Ii: As Due By Many Titles I Resign
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet I: Tho Has Made Me
• John Donne : Holy Sonnet ?
• John Donne : Good-morrow, The
• John Donne : Go And Catach A Falling Star
• John Donne : Funeral, The
• John Donne : For Whom The Bell Tolls
• John Donne : Elegy Xviii: Love's Progress