holy sonnets

Divine Poems Holy Sonnets

IV. “O, my black soul, now thou art summoned”

O, MY black soul, now thou art summoned By sickness, Death’s herald and champion; Thou’rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done Treason, and durst not turn to whence he’s fled; Or like a thief, which till death’s doom be read,         5 Wisheth himself deliver’d from prison, But damn’d and haled to execution, 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?         10 O, make thyself with holy mourning black, And red with blushing, as thou art with sin; Or wash thee in Christ’s blood, which hath this might, That being red, it dyes red souls to white.