"If lecherous goats...cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?" The poet of the Holy Sonnets John Donne, uses certainty as well as an impulse towards talking to God "the lord" and creator of the universe. The poem presents the theme of guilt and being "damned" as Donne would say when in fact us humans are the ones to be spared since God was the one that gave us the pleasure to think and have reason. Basically what the poet is trying to say is his soul to be spared when judgement day comes along; by sparing his soul it's meant that he wants his sins and all the dreadful things that he did to be forgotten so in when God comes he is repented and therefore sent to heaven. The most important and strongest feature in my opinion that Donne presents to the reader I the progression throughout the poem, about all else that god has created having no reason or for that matter sense in what they are doing and yet they are sinning in the eyes of god not be judged, but he which is doing the exact same things as the goats and trees and minerals be judged if God was the one that gave him sense and reason and knowledge? If a rock is responding to it's nature then so is he.
Humans cant help doing what their instincts or "gut" tells them what to do. Its their nature. Donne comments on this in his sonnet by using a progression in the poem, first showing anger and resentment and them showing repentance and pleads for mercy. We can see that in the first eight lines he is in a complaining tone to God and expressing what he truly feels deep inside; he's asking if animals and plants cant be condemned to hell they "why should