Batter My Heart, Three-Person´d God

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.

- John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV

I do not remember when I first read this sonnet, but when I came across it again today I remembered how powerfully moving I had found it.

I also recognised that all these months later, perhaps even years, my heart was still like the walls of that "usurp'd town," unyielding to the Lord's incessant battering.

But like that town, cut off from outside sustenance, I also realised that I was suffering from hunger and thirst. Perhaps that is a clue to what the outcome will eventually be.