Batter my heart, three personed 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 usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, should defend,
But is captived and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed 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.
- John Donne
3 comments:
I have to ask, what is it about this poem that made you blog about it? How does it relate to your life?
Now I'm curious about the author ... who was John Donne? (I assume he's no longer living). Was he a Puritan?
Rusty
Wow! Well, I didn't even expect a comment on this one (seeing as how I didn't write it or anything. ;) Hmmm... let me see...
Brent - I pulled this poem out of a really, really old copy of "Immortal Poems" - a book I had found on the shelf while searching for something on the family bookshelves that I HADN'T read yet. (I was born an insatiable reader - I think I've told you that before.) Although it's short, I found this to be a very honest declaration of the writer's, speaking of his own shortcomings and sinfulness. It was this reason that I chose to "blog" about it (although I didn't really say anything!) - I, in my own selfish desire for control - often need to remind myself of the beauty of being "overthrown". It's a topic we somewhat covered in your mom's "Calm my Anxious Heart" class a year or so ago - and I am learning it still.
Count Casie - John Donne was an English Anglican minister from the late 1500s to about 1630, I believe. He was a priest in the Anglican church as of 1615. He was also, on the side, a poet - considered one of the most outstanding of the English Metaphysical poets - and wrote some things that are as bad as this poem is good. I found this solitary poem among a few other of his that neither offended or impressed me. ;) So, there you have it!!!
I posted this poem merely as a forerunner to another post I'm working on - one in which I actually say something. :) God bless!
~ The Paasch-inator
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