"Batter my heart" ---John Donne

The Anchoress posted this poem by John Donne, a former Catholic who eventually became an Anglican priest.

In his early life, he spent his money on womanizing! Sounds like a terrible legacy, but check out this poem and see how God really does give beauty for ashes. The Anchoress also has posted a YouTube video of someone singing this poem:

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.
— John Donne