The sacred paradox in Batter My Heart by Donne The great paradox of the Christian faith lies in the condition that, to be truly free, the soul must first be freed from slavery of sin, then recaptured and completely conquered by God. One of the most profound expressions of this paradox is found in John Donne's poem, "Batter My Heart" (Meyer 882). Donne expresses this spiritual transformation in intensely passionate language, using rhythm, figures of speech, and sounds to convey this theme. The poem opens with a bang as the speaker addresses God as “three-person God” (1), hence the Christian God. , with a desperate request. The opening line uses iambic pentameter meter with a rhythm that suggests the sound of someone banging on a door, with the sound "bam, pa, pa, bam", repeated: "Beat my heart, God three people" (line 1, italics mine). The poem begins with alternating trochaic and iambic feet, which mark the rhythm of the drum and increase the tone of desperation in the voice. The urgency of the motif is expressed by the direct command, which ends suddenly with a caesura. This is followed by the enjambement of the opening line which advances the supplication to the next line to explain this urgency. The rhythm then changes to a slower tap, tap, tap, ta tap, ta tap as the speaker tells God that he has been kind and gentle, "for You/For now you can only knock, breathe, shine and try to mend " (1-2). The spondean accent on the third foot of the verse suggests a deliberate knock, knock, knock, yet the verbs reveal God's silent but persistent concern, which the speaker suggests has been all too easy, thus far: God, as the Holy Spirit, breathes , shine and repair. The verb "knock" in the second line may well refer to Revelation 3:20: "...in the center of the card...particularly in Bemini's 17th-century statue of "The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa." lying in an attitude of total submission, with an angel standing above her, very reminiscent of Donne's poetry. John Donne's use of language is masterful in several ways. It is able to convey the spiritual theme of a sudden violent act of God to convert a seeking, but weak human soul. He does this by using the carnal act as a metaphor for the mystical work of the Holy Spirit. He also uses human experience as a way to interpret mystical experience. which would otherwise be inexpressible. Works Cited Meyer, Mchael. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 5th ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.