The Poetry of John Donne

I have always been an avid reader, even since my earliest youth, yet poetry somehow escaped my attention until my first years in college. I fell in love with this particular form of written communication because, in my opinion, it allows for the expression of a multitude of things which could never be fully expressed in prose or even speech. Greater minds than mine have set themselves to explain why this is; I personally think it generates around the idea that poetry allows you to break the rules of more common forms of communication. It allows you to come closer to projecting something beyond expression. When reading the poetry of a master, sometimes it is as if the Poet is taking his (or her) emotion, vision, or experience, and placing it more directly before you, not clinging so closely to a need for sentences to translate that emotion or experience. It comes to you raw – presented, rather than merely described.

Now, I have written quite a bit of poetry since I first came to love it, but I realized that most of my poems do not center around religious themes or God Himself. I gave some thought to why this might be and I realized that in one sense, I write poetry to, and about God quite often in the way I pray. My deepest prayers to God are beyond words and sometimes even thought (though I have difficultly in explaining this). Certainly, my prayers are often that sort of “inside my head mental-speak” where I silently say “Forgive me for…or thank You for…”, but when I am in deepest communion with God, words seem to become needless. When I pray I am presenting my longings to God beyond a need for translation in words or thoughts. Now that I think of it, maybe that is the reason why poetry really appeals to me.

Anyway, if you have not heard of John Donne before then it is my pleasure to present his writings to you for the first time. The story of his life is quite compelling, from sinner to saint in some regards, and I heartily recommend reading more about his life if you are unfamiliar with him. This is a poem of his that I had not read before, and though it is far from the sort of abstractions I described earlier, I really enjoyed it. I hope you do too.

Holy Sonnet XIV

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,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved 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.

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Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.

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