In April 1957, Tom Riley, an American artist was corresponding with Meher Baba in India. Baba inquired who Tom which was his favourite poet and poem from the Western World. Tom replied that the following poem by John Donne was his and in a subsequent letter Baba revealed that his favourite whilst at Deccan College in Poona, India studying, was his also.

** To read the full episode of Tom Riley's encounter see his book "More Light, an artist life with Meher Baba ". pages 76-78

Batter my heart, three-person’d God ( Sonnet 14 )

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.

The sonnet begins with an appeal to a gentle God to stop being so kind. This is not a speaker who wants his faith tested, but one who wants the divine to shatter him and create him again stronger and more secure in his faith. In order to stand, he begs to be thrown to the ground and broken.

In the next phrase, God’s enemy has captured this poet’s reason and pillaged and plundered him like a “usurp’d town.” He appeals to God to save him from this marriage to the Devil by asking the divine to steal him back, enslave him, and rape him. It’s one of my favorite lines in poetry:

“Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

Courtesy of Graceful Indecency ( L.J. Longo )

https://gracefulindecency.com/2016/11/24/batter-my-heart-three-persond-god/

A portrait of Donne as a young man, c. 1595, in the National Portrait Gallery, London