One of my other great, favourite prayers is the holy sonnet by John Donne, ‘Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God.’ It is not dissimilar to the Anselm prayer in theme, but instead we get Donne’s sonorous English poetry to give our prayers wings. And if you want more John Donne, check out “Annunciation” over at Malcolm Guite’s blog.
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.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
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.
I am especially fond of the paradoxes of the life of faith in the final two lines.
This resonates with me. Thank you.
You’re welcome — I’m glad it resonates with you!
wonderful and power words! thank you for sharing them.
You’re welcome! Such wonderful words are meant to be shared, methinks.
[…] think on the rapture I have experienced at choral eucharists and evensongs. Or the hold that John Donne’s ‘Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God’ has on m…. We need what the Romantics called the sublime. The sublime helps us rise up from the prosaic, […]