Poetry and Enlightenment

This final assignment I was completing for my last English Lit class briefly covered John Donne's Holy Sonnets.  At first I found these works overwhelming. They were written four hundred years ago and were so very puritan on the surface.

Then hours over repeatedly reading them I started to see them and take them as my own feelings instead of trying to understand his words through his eyes.

Here are a few lines from Holy Sonnet (I) and then tell me what you think:

           Only you are above, and when I can look toward you,
            I rise again
           But our subtle foe so tempts me
           That I cannot sustain myself for one hour.
           Your grace may wing me to prevent his art,
           And you will draw my iron heart toward you like a magnet

There must be something blasphemous about me to turn this man's love for Christ into my own erotic musings.  But isn't love all the same? Having its own hierarchy? there is always someone you will bow down too and hope that love will transcend?

Just a thought ....

And no I did NOT include my personal thoughts on Donne in my paper.  I stuck to the assignment :)