In Vnitate Devs Est
Numisma Vrbani 6.
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 liues and loues.
Hearken, and help, ye holy doues!
The high-born brood of Day; you bright
Candidates of blissefull light,
The heirs elect of Loue, whose names belong
Vnto the euerlasting life of song;
All ye wise sovles, who in the wealthy brest
Of this vnbounded name, build your warm nest.
Awake, my glory, Sovl (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 Heavn 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 morning's mighty busynes.
One little world or two
(Alas) will neuer doe;
We must haue store.
Goe, Sovl, out of thy self, and seek for more.
Goe and request
Great Natvre for the key of her huge chest
Of Heauns, the self-inuoluing sett of sphears
(Which dull mortality more feeles then heares).
Then rouse the nest
Of nimble Art, and trauerse round
The aiery shop of soul-appeasing sound:
And beat a summons in the same
All-soueraign name,
To warn each seuerall kind
And shape of sweetnes, be they such
As sigh with supple wind
Or answer artfull touch;
That they conuene and come away
To wait at the loue-crowned doores of this illustrious day. love
Shall we dare this, my Soul? we'l doe't and bring
No other note for't, but the name we sing.
Wake lvte and harp, and euery 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 haue authority in Love's name to take you,
And to the worke of Loue this morning wake you.
Wake, in the name
Of Him Who neuer sleeps, all things that are,
Or, what's the same,
Are musicall;
Answer my call
And come along;
Help me to meditate mine immortal song.
Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth,
Bring all your houshold stuffe of Heaun on earth;
O you, my Soul's most certain wings,
Complaining pipes, and prattling strings,
Bring all the store
Of sweets you haue; and murmur that you haue no more.
Come, ne're to part,
Nature and Art!
Come; and come strong,
To the conspiracy of our spatious song.
Bring all the powres of praise,
Your prouinces of well-vnited worlds can raise;
Bring all your lvtes and harps of Heavn and Earth;
Whatere cooperates to the common mirthe:
Vessells of vocall ioyes,
Or you, more noble architects of intellectuall noise,
Cymballs of Heau'n, or humane sphears,
Solliciters of sovles or eares;
And when you are come, with all
That you can bring or we can call:
O may you fix
For euer here, and mix
Your selues into the long
And euerlasting series of a deathlesse song;
Mix all your many worlds aboue,
And loose them into one of loue.
Chear thee my heart!
For thou too hast thy part
And place in the Great Throng
Of this vnbounded 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 Heauns, 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 haue their musick too,
Ye mighty Orbes, as well as you;
Nor yeilds the noblest nest
Of warbling Seraphim to the eares of Loue,
A choicer lesson then the ioyfull brest
Of a poor panting turtle-doue.
And we, low wormes, haue leaue to doe
The same bright busynes (ye Third Heavens) with you.
Gentle spirits, doe not complain!
We will haue care
To keep it fair,
And send it back to you again.
Come, louely Name! Appeare from forth the bright
Regions of peacefull light;
Look from Thine Own illustrious home,
Fair King of names, and come:
Leaue all Thy natiue glories in their gorgeous nest,
And giue 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 louely Name; Life of our hope!
Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope!
Vnlock Thy cabinet of Day,
Dearest Sweet, and come away.
Lo, how the thirsty Lands
Gasp for Thy golden showres! with long-stretcht hands
Lo, how the laboring Earth
That hopes to be
All Heauen 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 in 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-lookt 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 hiue,
By which they thriue,
Where all their hoard of hony lyes.
Lo, where it comes, vpon the snowy Dove's
Soft back; and brings a bosom big with loues:
Welcome to our dark world, Thou womb of Day!
Vnfold 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,
(Cloud of condensed sweets) and break vpon vs
In balmy showrs!
O, fill our senses, and take from vs 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 vniuersall synod of all sweets;
By whom it is defined thus,
That no perfume
For euer shall presume
To passe for odoriferous,
But such alone whose sacred pedigree
Can proue itself 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 spices
And ten thousand paradises,
The soul that tasts Thee takes from thence.
How many vnknown 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; gaue glorious chase
To persecutions; and against the face
Of Death and feircest dangers, durst with braue
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 vp to teach Thee;
In center of their inmost soules, they wore Thee,
Where rackes and torments striu'd, in vain, to reach Thee. 200
Little, alas, thought they
Who tore the fair brests of Thy freinds,
Their fury but made way
For Thee, and seru'd them in Thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons but with wider pores
Inlarge Thy flaming-brested louers,
More freely to transpire
That impatient fire,
The heart that hides Thee hardly couers?
What did their weapons but sett wide the doores
For Thee? fair, purple doores, of Loue's deuising;
The ruby windowes which inricht 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 Loue oreflowd the bounds
Of Wrath, and made Thee way through all those wovnds.
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 heaun-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 Loue's mild dictate now
Will not adore Thee,
Shall then, with just confusion bow
And break before Thee.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The title in 1648 'Steps' is simply 'On the name of Jesus.' In 1670 it
is 'To the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus, a Hymn,' and
throughout differs from our text (1652) only in usual modernisation of
orthography. The text of 1648 yields these readings:
Line 7, 'the bright.'
" 42, 'of th's.'
" 49, 'Into a habit fit of self tun'd Harmonie.'
" 79, 'you're.'
" 92, 'aloud.'
" 105, 'Seraphins.'
" 106, 'loyall' for 'joyfull.'
" 132, 'heavens.'
" 182 spells 'sillabell.'
" 187, 'The soules tastes thee takes from thence.'
" 202, 'bare.'
" 204, 'ware.'
" 209, 'For Thee: And serv'd therein thy glorious ends.'