Read "If Poisonous Minerals, and if that Tree" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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, O! 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.