This week for my English assignment I had to pick a poem and do a report on it. I picked the poem “Batter my heart” by John Donne. At first glance it didn’t look like much, but as I began to really study it, I began to get touched, and even powerfully impacted. The poem goes like this.
Batter my heart, three personed 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 usuped town to another due,
Labor to admit You, but Oh! 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 betrothed unto Your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.
At first read it may seem a little hard to understand, but upon further study, this is a very powerful poem. Donne is begging the Lord of the universe to batter his heart, which means basically to beat repeatedly; he says that all God has done so far is gently knock, patiently waiting to get in, but Donne is saying that in order for him to be able to stand as a Christian, he needs God to break, blow and burn him. This was powerful to me because so many times I feel the same way. God is such a gentleman, but sometime I wish He would just force Himself into my life. I need that battering. My heart is so deceitful, desperately wicked, and keeps on turning to the things in this world. I long for God to just force Himself in.
Donne then likens himself to a city that has been seized. He wants to allow God in, but he cannot. He knows that he should defend reason, but his reason has been taken captive. I am like that city. I have been taken captive, and feel completely helpless to allow God into my heart. There are so many places in my life where I feel like I cannot let Him in. Sin has overtaken my heart. But yet like Donne I cry, I dearly love God, and long to be loved in return!
In the last section of the poem Donne uses the analogy of the bride of Christ. He says that he is engaged to the enemy. He knows that he cannot be free from that engagement unless God would set him free. He is crying out for God’s intervention to divorce him from that wrong relationship. I also so so need God to set me free from my relationship with this world. I feel helpless, I am tied to the world. I am desperate for the Lord, I need Him to imprison me. I need Him to hold my attention so that I cannot look to the things of this world.
The last line of the poem is the most powerful! Donne says he will never be pure unless God would actually rape him. He is saying that he needs God to literally force Himself upon him before he can be completely free from this world. That too is what I need. I am so helpless, so sinful, that I need God to force Himself upon me. I don’t have it in me to choose Him, I always choose the world. Even though I long for Him with all my heart, my heart is deceitful, and causes me to choose that what I do not want.
This poem has really shown me the desperation is inside of me for God, but also the utter weakness. I need God so so badly, but I need God to come to me. I am helpless to go to Him. I am crying out for Him to invade my life! I am so thankful that He is a loving God, and that He promised that He would give me the desire of my heart. I know that He will give me the desire that I want, but so many times am unable to fight for.
