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Today, on February 9th, 2010, the site contains 196 poets, 8,692 poems and 8,006 comments.
John Donne - Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God

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,
Labor 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 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 even chaste, except you ravish me.

Added: on April 8th, 2008 at 11:17 PM | Viewed: 11389 times | Comments (15)


Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God - Comments and Information

Poet: John Donne
Poem: Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God

Comment 15 of 15, added on January 14th, 2010 at 9:08 PM.
Explanation

How do you all explain the transferrence from the formal, capitalized You to the less formal lowercase you halfway through the poem? Is it possible he is referring to reason towards the end?

ss256 from United States
Comment 14 of 15, added on May 22nd, 2009 at 7:07 AM.

Donne's "Batter my Heart" is one of the greatest poem ever recorded in history to use paradox as a metaphysical coceit, of asking for holy salvation from his God through harsh contradiction of war-like imageries.

Bodunde Tobi from Nigeria
Comment 13 of 15, added on April 8th, 2008 at 11:17 PM.

John Donne is a great Metaphyical poet who uses great skills in combining the physical things with that of the spiritual(divinely)through the use of image,a unification of disparate ideas.

Okunnuga Oluwayemisi from Nigeria

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