How great was my sin before, how tightly I find it clinging now, and how I look to that day when I shall be glorified and called by a unique name…Lord haste the day!
“A Hymn to God the Father” [thought to have been written in 1623]
I. Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For, I have more.
II. Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin? and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
III. I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thy self, that at my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done,
I have no more.
John Donne, The Complete English Poems ed. A. J. Smith (1971 repr., Harmondsworh, England: Penguin Books, 1996), 348-349
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