"Holy Sonnet: Batter my heart, three-person'd God"
By
John Donne
Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students and Staff of the University of
Virginia, Rachel Retica
[TP]
POEMS,
By J. D[onne].
WITH
ELEGIES
ON THE AUTHOR'S
Death.
LONDON.
Printed by M. F. for [J]OHN MARRIOT,
and are to be sold at his shop in St Dunstans
Church-yard in Fleet-street. 1633. 10 (XIV)numbering numbering The first number comes from Helen Gardner's renumbering of the Sonnets in her 1952 edition of The Divine Poems, and the Roman numeral in parentheses retains the sequence given in editions printed from 1635 to 1669. - [RR]
1Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you 2As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; 3That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee, and bend 4Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new, 5I, like an usurpt towne, to another due, 6Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end, 7Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend, 8But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue, 9Yet dearely I love you, and would be lov'd faine, 10But am betroth'd unto your enemie, 11Divorce mee, untie, or breake that knot againe, 12Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I 13Except you enthral mee, never shall be free, 14Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
By J. D[onne].
WITH
ELEGIES
ON THE AUTHOR'S
Death.
LONDON.
Printed by M. F. for [J]OHN MARRIOT,
and are to be sold at his shop in St Dunstans
Church-yard in Fleet-street. 1633. 10 (XIV)numbering numbering The first number comes from Helen Gardner's renumbering of the Sonnets in her 1952 edition of The Divine Poems, and the Roman numeral in parentheses retains the sequence given in editions printed from 1635 to 1669. - [RR]
1Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you 2As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; 3That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee, and bend 4Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new, 5I, like an usurpt towne, to another due, 6Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end, 7Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend, 8But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue, 9Yet dearely I love you, and would be lov'd faine, 10But am betroth'd unto your enemie, 11Divorce mee, untie, or breake that knot againe, 12Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I 13Except you enthral mee, never shall be free, 14Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
Footnotes
numbering_
The first number comes from Helen Gardner's renumbering of the Sonnets in her 1952
edition of The Divine Poems, and the Roman numeral in
parentheses retains the sequence given in editions printed from 1635 to 1669.