Little Donne

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,

Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd 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

Tonight I went to see the New York premiere of "Doctor Atomic," a new opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project at the Met. (I learned about it from this 2005 New Yorker article.) I am by no means an opera expert so critically my thoughts on it overall are disorganized, but I was really moved by the Act 1 finale which uses this poem as lyrics for Oppenheimer on the eve of the first big nuclear test. Those last two lines... exquisite.