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

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.