Holy Sonnet IX

    If poisonous 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,
    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 sins' black memory.
    That thou remember them, some claim as debt;
    I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.