| |
| I SING the Name which none can say, | |
| But touch’d with an interior ray; | |
| The Name of our new peace, our good, | |
| Our bliss, and supernatural blood. | |
| The Name of all our lives and loves. | 5 |
| Hearken and help, ye holy doves, | |
| The high-born brood of day, the bright | |
| Candidates of blissful light, | |
| The heirs-elect of love, whose names belong | |
| Unto the everlasting life of song; | 10 |
| All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast | |
| Of this unbounded Name build your warm nest; | |
| Awake my glory, soul (if such thou be | |
| And that fair word at all refer to thee), | |
| Awake and sing | 15 |
| And be all wing, | |
| Bring hither thy whole self, and let me see | |
| What of thy parent Heaven yet speaks in thee; | |
| O thou art poor | |
| Of noble powers, I see, | 20 |
| And full of nothing else but empty me, | |
| Narrow, and low, and infinitely less | |
| Than this great morning’s mighty business. | |
| One little word or two | |
| (Alas) will never do; | 25 |
| We must have store, | |
| Go, soul, out of thyself, and seek for more; | |
| Go and request | |
| Great Nature for the key of her huge chest | |
| Of heav’ns, the self-involving set of spheres, | 30 |
| Which dull mortality more feels than hears; | |
| Then rouse the nest | |
| Of nimble art, and traverse round | |
| The airy shop of soul-appeasing sound, | |
| And beat a summons in the same | 35 |
| All Sovereign Name, | |
| To warn each several kind | |
| And shape of sweetness, be they such | |
| As sigh with supple wind, | |
| Or answer artful touch, | 40 |
| That they convene and come away, | |
| To wait at the love-crowned doors of this illustrious day. | |
| Shall we dare this, my soul? we’ll do’t and bring | |
| No other note for’t but the Name we sing. | |
| Wake, lute and harp, | 45 |
| And every sweet-lipt thing | |
| That talks with tuneful string | |
| Start into life: and leap with me | |
| Into a habit fit of self-tuned harmony; | |
| Nor must you think it much | 50 |
| T’ obey my bolder touch. | |
| I have authority in Love’s name to take you, | |
| And to the work of Love this morning wake you; | |
| Wake in the Name | |
| Of Him who never sleeps, all things that are, | 55 |
| Or, what’s the same, | |
| Are musical, | |
| Answer my call | |
| And come along, | |
| Help me to meditate mine immortal song. | 60 |
| Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth, | |
| Bring all your household stuff of heav’n on earth; | |
| O you my soul’s most certain wings, | |
| Complaining pipes, and prattling strings, | |
| Bring all the store | 65 |
| Of sweets you have, and murmur that you have no more. | |
| Come, lovely Name, appear forth from the bright | |
| Regions of peaceful light, | |
| Look from Thine own illustrious home, | |
| Fair King of Names, and come, | 70 |
| Leave all Thy native glories in their gorgeous nest, | |
| And give Thyself awhile the gracious guest | |
| Of humble souls, that seek to find | |
| The hidden sweets | |
| Which man’s heart meets, | 75 |
| When Thou art master of the mind. | |
| Come, lovely Name, life of our hope! | |
| Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope! | |
| Unlock Thy cabinet of day, | |
| Dearest sweet, and come away. | 80 |
| Lo, how the thirsty lands | |
| Gasp for thy golden showers, with long-stretched hands! | |
| |
| Lo, how the labouring earth, | |
| That hopes to be | |
| All heavens by Thee, | 85 |
| Leaps at Thy birth. | |
| Come, royal Name, and pay th’ expense | |
| Of all Thy precious patience. | |
| O! come away, | |
| And kill the death of this delay. | 90 |
| O! see so many worlds of barren years | |
| Melted, and measured out in seas of tears; | |
| O! see the weary lids of wakeful hope | |
| (Love’s eastern windows) all wide ope | |
| With curtains drawn, | 95 |
| To catch the daybreak of Thy dawn; | |
| O! dawn at last, long-look’d-for day, | |
| Take thine own wings and come away. | |
| Sweet Name, in Thy each syllable | |
| A thousand blest Arabias dwell, | 100 |
| A thousand hills of frankincense; | |
| Mountains of myrrh, and beds of spices, | |
| And ten thousand paradises | |
| The soul that tastes Thee takes from thence. | |
| How many unknown worlds there are | 105 |
| Of comforts which Thou hast in keeping! | |
| How many thousand mercies there, | |
| In Pity’s lost lap, lie a-sleeping! | |
| Happy he who has the art | |
| To awake them, | 110 |
| And to take them | |
| Home and lodge them in his heart. | |
| O that it were as it was wont to be! | |
| When Thy old friends of fire, all full of Thee, | |
| Fought against frowns with smiles, gave glorious chase | 115 |
| To persecutions, and against the face | |
| Of death and fiercest dangers durst with brave | |
| And sober pace march on to meet a grave. | |
| On their bold breasts about the world they bore Thee, | |
| And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach Thee: | 120 |
| In centre of their inmost souls they wore Thee, | |
| Where racks and torments strived in vain to reach Thee. | |
| Little, alas! thought they | |
| Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends, | |
| Their fury but made way | 125 |
| For Thee; and served therein Thy glorious ends. | |
| What did their weapons but set wide the doors | |
| For Thee? Fair purple doors of Love’s devising; | |
| The ruby windows which enriched the east | |
| Of Thy so oft-repeated rising. | 130 |
| Each wound of theirs was Thy new morning; | |
| And re-enthroned Thee in Thy rosy nest, | |
| With blush of Thine own blood Thy day adorning. | |
| It was the wit of love o’erflowed the bounds | |
| Of wrath, and made Thee way through all those wounds. | 135 |
| |
