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O pensive soul, to God, for he knows best *
Thy grief for he put it into my brest.
IX.
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.
X.
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.

[CW: XI.]