Holy sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person’d God
John Donne’s poem “Batter my heart, three-person’d God” is part of a series known as the “Holy Sonnets”, which was first published in 1633, two years after Donne’s death.
John Donne was born on 22 January 1572 in London, England, and he died on 31 March 1631 in London, England, at the age of 59.A poet, priest, scholar, and soldier, Donne is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style, characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies, and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax, and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques.
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Wikipedia page on “Holy sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person’d God”
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Wikipedia page on John Donne
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp’d town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d 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.