Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God
John Donne, 1633
Donne’s holy sonnet in which the speaker begs God to take him by force, like a besieged town, since only as God’s captive can he be free.
Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for youAs yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bendYour force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,But am betroth’d unto your enemy;Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,Take me to you, imprison me, for I,Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.