Batter my heart, three-personed God
By: John Donne

This sonnet is an apostrophe between a man and God.  He is directly addressing God, asking Him to purify his heart.  The first 8 lines include the narrator admitting and confessing his wrongs.  However, he is telling God that he cannot purify himself.  He wants God to do it all for him.  The last 6 lines see a shift.  The narrator begins to surrender to God.  He tells God that he is currently rejecting Him, but he wants to be saved.  "Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain, but am betrothed to your enemy" (Donne).  Here, he tells God that the devil has taken prominence in his life.  He asks God to be saved, and he claims that he cannot do anything to save himself.  Only God can purify him.  Another thing I took note of in this poem is when the narrator used three consecutive words; I took them as references to the Holy Trinity.  He uses "knock, breathe, shine" and "break, blow, burn" (Donne).  I think that "knock" and "break" refer to God.  He is the one that can remove evil from our lives.  "Breathe" and "blow" refer to Jesus Christ, the Son.  He is the living form of God, and these words are actions that would have to be done by a person.  "Shine" and "burn" refer to the Holy Spirit because it is often depicted as a fire, which can shine and burn.