John Donne

“John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone” were the whimsical words written in the aftermath of a clandestine marriage.  The English poet John Donne (1572-1631) married Anne Moore secretly, against her father’s wishes.  Anne’s dad wanted her to marry into a titled family, not a middle-class suitor like John. They paid a heavy price for their elopement. John lost his job and was thrown into prison. No one was willing to hire him after his release, so John eked out a living by writing poetry for wealthy patrons.  His poetry in those youthful years was romantic, even erotic.  He also deployed his keen wit and vivid imagination to challenge prevailing conventions of English society.  Anne and John had twelve children in sixteen years.  Anne died shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child.  The time for writing love poetry was over and John shifted to religious themes, speaking of his earlier poetry as “recreations of his youth.”  John had resisted a call to the ministry, but his spiritual awakening led to his ordination into the Anglican priesthood and his appointment as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. He was known in those days more for his preaching than his accomplishments as a poet. His later poetry included some memorable lines: “Death be not Proud,” “No Man is an Island,” and “For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
John’s poem that follows here, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God,” is indicative of his emergent faith.  His reference to batter correlates to a battering ram used in ancient warfare and follows it with powerful words like “overthrow,” “break,” “blow” and “burn.”  No polite knocking at the door of his heart will do. He asks God to seize his heart by force. He implores God at the end to enthrall and ravish him with love. He asks God to break the hold evil has on him with divine love: