Holy Sonnet 14,
“Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God”

John Donne

Edited by Jack Lynch

Donne uses a number of complicated metaphors. My notes tend to give the literal meanings of the words he uses, but he is almost certainly drawing on other more figurative meanings as well.

The copy-text is the first edition of 1633. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are preserved. The notes are my own.


Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee, ’and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt° towne, to’ another due, [5] conquered
Labour to’ admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy° in mee, mee should defend, governor acting on a ruler’s authority
But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue,
Yet dearely’ I love you’, and would be lov’d faine,° willingly
But am betroth’d unto your enemie, [10]
Divorce mee, ’untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except° you ’enthrall° mee, never shall be free, unless — enslave
Nor ever chast,° except° you ravish mee. sexually pure — unless

Notes

three person’d God
Most Christian denominations believe in the Trinity, the notion that there is one God in three “persons,” the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit).
mee, ’and
The apostrophe — here and several more times in this poem — indicates that, metrically, the two syllables are to be run together. All these elisions appear when one word ends in a vowel sound and the next word begins with one. This preserves the usual ten syllables of the pentameter line: “That Í may ríse, and stánd, o’erthrów mee, ’and bénd.“
captiv’d
To captive is a rare verb, “To take captive, bring into captivity” (OED).
ravish
Literally “To rape, violate,” but by extension “To transport (a person, the mind, etc.) with the strength of some emotion; to fill with ecstasy, intense delight, or sensuous pleasure; to entrance, captivate, or enrapture” (OED).