Aye, couldst those sighs and tears return again into my breast and eyes, which I have spent, that I might in this holy discontent mourn with some pluck'd fruit, for I more than mourn'd in vain;
in mine idolatry, what showers of rain mine eyes did waste! Thus true? What griefs my heart did rent! That sufferance was my sin; now I repent; 'cause I did suffer ev'ry pain -and much melancholy. That vaporous drunkard, and night wandering thief, the scaly ***** and the self-aggrandizing beasts have the remembrance of past glee's, for relief of coming ills. Tho poor me is allow'd no ease; for, long, yet vehement grief e'er o'erfills, and awes -this hath been as it hath been the effect and cause, the punishment and sin.
But oh! my black soul! now art thou summoned by sickness, (deaths herald,) and champion; thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done treason, and durst not to turn to whence he is fled; or himself a thief, which 'til Death's doom be read, the guilty wisheth himself delivered from prison, but ****** and haled execution, (with Hell to wed,) wisheth that still he might be imprisoned. Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack: but who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Ah, make thy self with holy mourning black, and red with blushing, as thou art with sin; or wash thee with Christ's blood, which hath this might being red, it dyes red souls to white.
Tho if poisonous minerals, and if that tree whose fruit threw mortality on else immortal us, if lecherous apple worms —serpents envious—cannot be ******, 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.
I only pray that I have done justice in my revisions to these works by John Donne.