“Batter my heart, three-personed God” he said,
That god-drenched fellow, formerly the rake
Whose wit and charm teased women to his bed.
Which life was true—depraved—divine—which fake?
Suspicious late conversions mock the ears
Of moral vigilantes. Augustine
Himself confessed at Carthage fiery years
When hot unholy lust gripped like a fiend.
And W, that drunken debauchee,
Was born again? Come on! How can we tell?
Start wars and spoil for oil and by decree
Smut the air, cut forests, make Earth a Hell.
Intelligent design at work you say?
‘Twere better if he’d drink his life away.
10/21/05
John Donne (1572-1631) it was, who begged god to batter his heart in Holy Sonnet 14. But his lament occurred long after a misspent youth successfully chasing women (including the 17 year old (let’s give him credit for doing the right thing) he finally married). Further, the talented and tempestuous Donne had the misfortune to be born Catholic in a determinedly Protestant country. He did the only sensible thing—converted to Anglicanism and became a very great preacher indeed. And St. Augustine (the meter prefers Augustine rather than Augustine) (354-430), the celebrated Bishop of Hippo and author of one of the four seminal autobiographies in western literature, exhibited a youthful profligacy that provoked much concern among those who cared for him. In Book 3 of his Confessions he speaks of his student years: “To Carthage I came where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me”—and he only seventeen at the time.