April 23, 2005: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne
Holy Sonnet XIV
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,
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.
[Man, I love this poem; when Donne is on, he’s on. Such a powerful
(and risque!) image, especially for the 17th century. A relationship
with God that’s intimate and paradoxical. The sentiments remind me of
my favorite bits of Paul or Peter in the New Testament — the spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak. Donne twists the two together,
spirit and flesh and a violent kind of adoration. Also Shakespearean
sonnets are one of my very favorite kinds of form poetry; that final
couplet is so intense.]
