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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HOLY SONNET: 9, by JOHN DONNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: If poisonous [or poysonous] minerals, and if that tree Last Line: I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget. Variant Title(s): Holy Sonnet: 5 Subject(s): Forgiveness; Mercy; Clemency | |||
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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FORGIVING MY FATHER by LUCILLE CLIFTON WHAT WE CARRY; FOR DONALD by DORIANNE LAUX THE MAN WITH THE HOE OUTWITTED by EDWIN MARKHAM SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ELMER BARR by EDGAR LEE MASTERS LEAVING CHURCH EARLY by JOHN UPDIKE A HYMN TO CHRIST, AT THE AUTHOR'S LAST GOING INTO GERMANY by JOHN DONNE |
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