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.
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.
[1] "Holy Sonnet XIV" – also known by its first line as "Batter my heart, three-person'd God" – is a poem written by the English poet John Donne (1572 – 1631).
"[9] In the words of Edmund Gosse, it is Donne himself that takes the role of the speaker and “conceives himself a helpless, beleaguered city held by a hateful and tyrannic foe” – Satan.
[10] The military discourse is prominent in the octave of the poem, manifested in such expressions as: batter, your force, break, blow, burn, usurp'd town, due, viceroy, defend, captivated.
The speaker does not suffer from an internal problem here, unlike in a number of Donne's other Holy Sonnets (such as I am a little world made cunningly or O, to vex me); he is sure of what he needs and how to reach his end goal.
[13] In the first four lines of the poem, the speaker voices his need of being violated and forcefully remade by God, in order to get the promised salvation; his soul cannot be repaired, and it must be destroyed completely.
"[18] He argues that the monotone “but” is the most prominent element here and forms "the tone of the second half of the poem, in which forward progression is repeatedly checked by the 'yet,' 'but,' 'except' sequence which seems to make every thought double back on itself," and to surround closely the speaker – as well as the reader – with a constantly tightening barrier.
Ray acknowledges that there is a shift in the "emphasis to another conceit or motif" and that the speaker starts seeing and addressing God in a more intimate tone, expressing the "wish to be reconquered by Him in terms of love, sexuality, and marriage," and positioning himself in the passive, feminine mode.
[5] Ribes, who makes this argument, suggests that in the military interpretation, the only solution for a town to be free is to enthrall it, which in this case would mean physically bringing it into bondage.
Following this example, the amorous interpretation further supports the idea of the speaker using the point of view of a woman, who can be free only if God enthralls her, which would here mean enslaving her emotionally.
The earthly and more common meaning of the verb would be "to rape"(OED) or "to carry away by force,"[22] and it can be instantly connected to the amorous interpretation, where the relationship between the speaker and God is very physical and sexual.
A setting of the poem sung by the character of Robert Oppenheimer marks the climax of the first half of John Adams' 2005 opera Doctor Atomic.