To the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus by Richard Crashaw
I sing the Name which None can say But touch’t with An interiour Ray: The Name of our New Peace; our Good: Our Blisse: and Supernaturall Blood: The Name of All our Lives and Loves. Hearken, And Help, ye holy Doves! The high-born Brood of Day; you bright Candidates of blissefull Light, The Heirs Elect of Love; whose Names belong Unto The everlasting life of Song; All ye wise Soules, who in the wealthy Brest Of This unbounded Name build your warm Nest. Awake, My glory. Soul, (if such thou be, And That fair Word at all referr to Thee) Awake and sing And be All Wing; Bring hither thy whole Self; and let me see What of thy Parent Heaven yet speakes in thee, O thou art Poore Of noble Powres, I see, And full of nothing else but empty Me, Narrow, and low, and infinitely lesse Then this Great mornings mighty Busynes. One little World or two (Alas) will never doe. We must have store. Goe, Soul, out of thy Self, and seek for More. Goe and request Great Nature for the Key of her huge Chest Of Heavns, the self involving Sett of Sphears (Which dull mortality more Feeles then heares) Then rouse the nest Of nimble, Art, and traverse round The Aiery Shop of soul-appeasing Sound: And beat a summons in the Same All-soveraign Name To warn each severall kind And shape of sweetnes, Be they such As sigh with supple wind Or answer Artfull Touch, That they convene and come away To wait at the love-crowned Doores of This Illustrious Day. Shall we dare This, my Soul? we’l doe’t and bring No Other note for’t, but the Name we sing. Wake Lute and Harp And every sweet-lipp’t Thing That talkes with tunefull string; Start into life, And leap with me Into a hasty Fitt-tun’d Harmony. Nor must you think it much T’obey my bolder touch; I have Authority in Love’s name to take you And to the worke of Love this morning wake you; Wake; In the Name Of Him who never sleeps, All Things that Are, Or, what’s the same, Are Musicall; Answer my Call And come along; Help me to meditate mine Immortall Song. Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth, Bring All your houshold stuffe of Heavn on earth; O you, my Soul’s most certain Wings, Complaining Pipes, and prattling Strings, Bring All the store Of Sweets you have; And murmur that you have no more. Come, nй to part, Nature and Art! Come; and come strong, To the conspiracy of our Spatious song. Bring All the Powres of Praise Your Provinces of well-united Worlds can raise; Bring All your Lutes and Harps of Heaven and Earth; What йre cooperates to The common mirthe Vessells of vocall Ioyes, Or You, more noble Architects of Intellectuall Noise, Cymballs of Heav’n, or Humane sphears, Solliciters of Soules or Eares; And when you’are come, with All That you can bring or we can call; O may you fix For ever here, and mix Your selves into the long And everlasting series of a deathlesse Song; Mix All your many Worlds, Above, And loose them into One of Love. Chear thee my Heart! For Thou too hast thy Part And Place in the Great Throng Of This unbounded All-imbracing Song. Powres of my Soul, be Proud! And speake lowd To All the dear-bought Nations This Redeeming Name, And in the wealth of one Rich Word proclaim New Similes to Nature. May it be no wrong Blest Heavns, to you, and your Superiour song, That we, dark Sons of Dust and Sorrow, A while Dare borrow The Name of Your Dilights and our Desires, And fitt it to so farr inferior Lyres. Our Murmurs have their Musick too, Ye mighty Orbes, as well as you, Nor yeilds the noblest Nest Of warbling Seraphim to the eares of Love, A choicer Lesson then the joyfull Brest Of a poor panting Turtle-Dove. And we, low Wormes have leave to doe The Same bright Busynes (ye Third Heavens) with you. Gentle Spirits, doe not complain. We will have care To keep it fair, And send it back to you again. Come, lovely Name! Appeare from forth the Bright Regions of peacefull Light, Look from thine own Illustrious Home, Fair King of Names, and come. Leave All thy native Glories in their Georgeous Nest, And give thy Self a while The gracious Guest Of humble Soules, that seek to find The hidden Sweets Which man’s heart meets 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. Lo how the thirsty Lands Gasp for thy Golden Showres! with longstretch’t Hands. Lo how the laboring Earth That hopes to be All Heaven by Thee, Leapes at thy Birth. The’ attending World, to wait thy Rise, First turn’d to eyes; And then, not knowing what to doe; Turn’d Them to Teares, and spent Them too. Come Royall Name, and pay the expence Of all this Pretious Patience. O come away And kill the Death of This Delay. O see, so many Worlds of barren yeares Melted and measur’d out is Seas of Teares. O see, The Weary liddes of wakefull Hope (Love’s Eastern windowes) All wide ope With Curtains drawn, To catch The Day-break of Thy Dawn. O dawn, at last, long look’t for Day! Take thine own wings, and come away. Lo, where Aloft it comes! It comes, Among The Conduct of Adoring Spirits, that throng Like diligent Bees, And swarm about it. O they are wise; And know what Sweetes are suck’t from out it. It is the Hive, By which they thrive, Where All their Hoard of Hony lyes. Lo where it comes, upon The snowy Dove’s Soft Back; And brings a Bosom big with Loves. Welcome to our dark world, Thou Womb of Day! Unfold thy fair Conceptions; And display The Birth of our Bright Ioyes. O thou compacted Body of Blessings: spirit of Soules extracted! O dissipate thy spicy Powres (Clowd of condensed sweets) and break upon us In balmy showrs; O fill our senses, And take from us All force of so Prophane a Fallacy To think ought sweet but that which smells of Thee. Fair, flowry Name; In none but Thee And Thy Nectareall Fragrancy, Hourly there meetes An universall Synod of All sweets; By whom it is defined Thus That no Perfume For ever shall presume To passe for Odoriferous, But such alone whose sacred Pedigree Can prove it Self some kin (sweet name) to Thee. Sweet Name, in Thy each Syllable A Thousand Blest Arabias dwell; A Thousand Hills of Frankincense; Mountains of myrrh, and Beds of species, And ten Thousand Paradises, The soul that tasts thee takes from thence. How many unknown Worlds there are Of Comforts, which Thou hast in keeping! How many Thousand Mercyes there In Pitty’s soft lap ly a sleeping! Happy he who has the art To awake them, And to take them Home, and lodge them in his Heart. O that it were as it was wont to be! When thy old Freinds of Fire, All full of Thee, Fought against Frowns with smiles; gave Glorious chase To Persecutions; And against the Face Of Death and feircest Dangers, durst with Brave And sober pace march on to meet A Grave. On their Bold Brests about the world they bore thee And to the Teeth of Hell stood up to teach thee, In Center of their inmost Soules they wore thee, Where Rackes and Torments striv’d, in vain, to reach thee. Little, alas, thought They Who tore the Fair Brests of thy Freinds, Their Fury but made way For Thee; And serv’d them in Thy glorious ends. What did Their weapons but with wider pores Inlarge thy flaming-brested Lovers More freely to transpire That impatient Fire The Heart that hides Thee hardly covers. What did their Weapons but sett wide the Doores For Thee: Fair, purple Doores, of love’s devising; The Ruby windowes which inrich’t the East Of Thy so oft repeated Rising. Each wound of Theirs was Thy new Morning; And reinthron’d thee in thy Rosy Nest, With blush of thine own Blood thy day adorning, It was the witt of love уreflowd the Bounds Of Wrath, and made thee way through All Those wounds. Wellcome dear, All-Adored Name! For sure there is no Knee That knowes not Thee. Or if there be such sonns of shame, Alas what will they doe When stubborn Rocks shall bow And Hills hang down their Heavn-saluting Heads To seek for humble Beds Of Dust, where in the Bashfull shades of night Next to their own low Nothing they may ly, And couch before the dazeling light of thy dread majesty. They that by Love’s mild Dictate now Will not adore thee, Shall Then with Just Confusion, bow And break before thee.