Batter my heart, three person'd God (Holy Sonnet 14)

John Donne

 
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, 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.
 

Poems by This Author

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
Air and Angels by John Donne
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Ascension by John Donne
Salute the last, and everlasting day
At the round earth's imagined corners (Holy Sonnet 7) by John Donne
At the round earth's imagin'd corners
Break of Day by John Donne
Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be?
Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10) by John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness by John Donne
Since I am coming to that Holy room
Lovers' Infiniteness by John Donne
If yet I have not all the love
The Anniversary by John Donne
All kings, and all their favourites
The Apparition by John Donne
When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead
The Baite by John Donne
Come live with mee, and bee my love,
The Good-Morrow by John Donne
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
The Sun Rising by John Donne
Busy old fool, unruly Sun
To His Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne
Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy
To Sir Henry Wotton by John Donne
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls


Further Reading

Related Poems
The Wife-Woman
by Anne Spencer