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O pensive soul, to God, for he knows best * |
Thy grief for he put it into my brest. |
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IX. |
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If poysonous Minerals, and if that tree, |
Whose Fruit threw death on (else immortal) us |
If lecherous Goats, if Serpents envious |
Cannot be damn'd, alass, why should I be? |
Why should intent or reason, born in me, |
Make sins, else equal, in me more hainous? |
And mercy being easie 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 onely 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. |
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X. |
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Death be not proud, though some have called thee |
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so, |
For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, |
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. |
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be: |
Much pleasure then from thee, much more must flow, |
And soonest our best men with thee do goe, |
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery |
Thou art slave to Fate, chance, Kings, and desperate men, |
And dost with poyson, warr and sickness dwell, |
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well, |
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? |
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, |
And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die.
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[CW: XI.] |