A reading of a classic Donne poem by Dr Oliver Tearle

'Batter my centre, iii-person'd God': a typically blunt and directly opening for a John Donne poem, from a poet who is renowned for his bluff, attention-grabbing opening lines. This poem, written using the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet form, sees Donne calling upon God to take hold of him and consume him, in a collection of images that are at once securely spiritual and physically arresting.

Concoction my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As all the same but knock, exhale, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and curve
Your strength to break, accident, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no cease;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Nonetheless dearly I love y'all, and would exist 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 y'all enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor always chaste, except you lot ravish me.

This is a remarkable sonnet because, although it was written after Donne'southward confirmation as a priest in the Church building of England, it is teeming with the same erotic language we find in his earlier 'love poems'. This is the aspect of Donne which prefigures (and possibly influenced) a poet of 250 years afterward, the Victorian religious poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who frequently addresses God in the aforementioned breathless, excited manner that we encounter in this sonnet. (Hopkins also favoured the sonnet form, as demonstrated by his most famous poem, 'The Windhover', as well as by many of his other best-loved poems.) Donne's sonnet ends with a very daring declaration of desire that God 'ravish' him – much as he had longed for the women in his life to ravish him in his altogether more libertine youth.

Perhaps the best way to summarise and understand is to paraphrase. 'Vanquish me into submission, God [who is 'three-person'd' because he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit]; at the moment you merely try to persuade me, gently, to accept y'all into my heart. Only in order to brand me rise up and stand up earlier you lot a new, devout man, apply your ability to break me and remould me into someone new. I am like a town that has been captured and long to let you, my saviour, in to reclaim me. But it's no good, for my reason – which should act as your second-in-command within me and make me see sense, has been captured past the other side [i.e. the Devil], and is ineffectual or else has proved a turncoat. Notwithstanding I exercise dearly love yous, and would gladly accept your beloved, but I accept been promised to the Devil; sever the ties between me and him, take me to you and lock me up, for [paradoxically] I will never be free unless you take me equally your slave – I will never be pure unless you ravish me.'

Strong stuff, this – which, when paraphrased and put into modern-day linguistic communication (with 'thee' replaced by 'y'all'), but becomes all the more shocking as a holy poem. God is not simply depicted every bit an almighty forcefulness, simply is called upon to use his might and strength to crush Donne into submission. Here is a man wanting to be treated mean to be kept corking: 'Batter my eye', with that opening trochee (in a verse form that is largely written in iambic pentameter), sets the trend.

Donne piles on the verbs, especially in that first quatrain:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for yous
Equally withal but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may ascent and stand up, o'erthrow me, and curve
Your forcefulness to intermission, blow, burn down, and make me new.

This lexical volley – in the plainest possible sense, a verbal attack – conveys both Donne's sense of urgency to exist saved and embraced past God, and the forcefulness he acknowledges God to possess. The assortment of hard plosive sounds also, nowadays in the b-words (batter, exhale, bend, pause, accident, burn), as well as the internal rhymes (break/make, o'erthrow/force), half-rhymes (seek/break/make), and assonance (shine/rise) add together to the feeling of inundation, of verbal assault, mimicking the hoped-for battering Donne hopes to receive from God.

'Batter my eye' is close to 'suspension my eye', simply the paradox here – as in that final couplet – is that simply through such 'tough dear' will Donne'south heart be opened to the glory of God in a visceral and tangible way. He may be request for heartbreak (and, even, to be ravished – suggesting sexual force and besides, perhaps, sexual assault), simply the irony is that only through such actions will God'due south goodness reach Donne. In lodge for him to be remade, he must showtime exist broken.

The best edition of Donne'southward work is, in our opinion, the indispensable John Donne – The Major Works (Oxford Earth's Classics) . Discover more about Donne's poetry with our thoughts on his poem 'The Canonization', his classic poem 'The Ecstasy', and our discussion of his 'A Hymn to God the Male parent'.

The writer of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough Academy. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Volume-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Smashing War, The Waste matter Land and the Modernist Long Verse form.