and his ways are not simple or easy to explain. Musical settings Benjamin Britten set the poem to music for voice and piano as the second of the nine settings which make up his 1945 song cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. A setting of the poem sung by the character of Robert Oppenheimer marks the climax of John Adams' 2005 opera Doctor Atomic. Footnotes References External links "Batter my heart, three person'd God Poetry by John Donne 1633 poems Sonnets English poetry Poems published posthumously