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What a friend I've found,
closer than a brother;
I have felt your touch,
more intimate than lovers.

Martin Smith 1996 Curious? Music UK

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O disclose thy lovely face!
Quicken all my drooping powers;
Gasps my fainting soul for grace
As a thirsty land for showers.
Haste, my Lord, no more delay;
Come, my Saviour, come away.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee;
Joyless is the day's return
Till thy mercy's beams I see,
Till thou inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.

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Those dear tokens of his passion
still his dazzling body bears,
cause of endless exultation
to his ransomed worshipers;
with what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture
gaze we on those glorious scars!

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I would say it's even older than that - the Church is the Bride of Christ after all.

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... Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

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Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
That's an interesting one, Mudfrog. As best I can tell (which in this case is about 51% certainty), the version you sing is a mash-up of two separate hymns by Wesley (probably combined by him later). The version I have here - which claims to be the original - says the words were-

1 O DISCLOSE thy lovely face!
Quicken all my drooping powers;
Gasps my fainting soul for grace,
As a thirsty land for showers;
Haste, my Lord, no more delay,
Come, my Saviour, come away!

2 Well thou know'st I cannot rest
Till I fully rest in thee,
Till I am of thee possessed,
Till from every sin set free,
All the life of faith I prove,
All the joy and heaven of love.

3 With me O continue, Lord!
Keep me, or from thee I fly;
Strength and comfort from thy word
Imperceptibly supply,
Hold me till I apprehend,
Make me faithful to the end.

The other ones are from "Christ whose glory", as The Silent Acolyte pointed out.

A quick Google suggests that the first verse was popular with at least one Victorian sentimental novelist.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
John Wesley apparently had reservations about some of his brother's 'fondling' verses. This hymn is probably a good example of such things!

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ii) Please do not post hymns in their entirety (or even majority)... Even if the hymn was originally an old one, subsequent revisions to the text may mean it remains under copyright (although the original of the Wesley is probably okay). Cite the relevant passage and, if you want people to read the whole lyric, provide a link to it.

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The Anima Christi is a bit over the top. Sanguis Christi, inebria me. i.e. Blood of Christ, inebriate me is probably the most emotionally baroque line but not by a long head. Yet that was selected by St Ignatius to go in the Exercises, and he was an ex soldier.

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Originally posted by stonespring:
I know that Christianity is largely about moving beyond sensual desires to the more important things in life, but since grace and eternal life are abstract concepts, although we can experience them somewhat in this life, we still have to compare them to worldly things when using language to describe them

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Originally posted by no prophet:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I would say it's even older than that - the Church is the Bride of Christ after all.

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We also have John Donne Holy Sonnet 14

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... Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

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I love John Donne, although in fairness his secular work goes along those lines too

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The Anima Christi is a bit over the top. Sanguis Christi, inebria me. i.e. Blood of Christ, inebriate me is probably the most emotionally baroque line but not by a long head. Yet that was selected by St Ignatius to go in the Exercises, and he was an ex soldier.

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The English translation of the Anima Christi into 3-verse hymn form (by Anon, who gets about a bit) tones that line down somewhat to "blood of my saviour, bathe me in thy tide". Even so, it still makes a great communion hymn. Here's a link to Truro Cathedral Choir singing it, with the words obligingly printed across each frame.

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Kiss me with Your healing touch
Take me to the heat of the fire
Bathe me in your liquid love,
Oh, saturate me, saturate me.

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Originally posted by sebby:
I know we all seem to say 'Jesus this' and 'Jesus that' these days, although in my childhood we used to refer to 'Our Lord', and slightly bow at every mention of the Sacred Name when it occured in the liturgy

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Originally posted by Basilica:

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Originally posted by sebby:
I know we all seem to say 'Jesus this' and 'Jesus that' these days, although in my childhood we used to refer to 'Our Lord', and slightly bow at every mention of the Sacred Name when it occured in the liturgy

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Some of us still do those things...

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Originally posted by seasick:
I don't think any of the older examples quite get to the level that some more recent material does. I'm ok with intimacy in liturgy and hymnody but some things do seem to go somewhat beyond that.

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Kiss me with Your healing touch
Take me to the heat of the fire
Bathe me in your liquid love,
Oh, saturate me, saturate me.

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I'm not sure what that's even supposed to mean!

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Originally posted by Basilica:

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Originally posted by sebby:
... we used to refer to ...slightly bow at every mention of the Sacred Name when it occured in the liturgy

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Some of us still do those things...

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

love poetry - quite florid and romantic - asking our lover to haste and 'come away', our lovely-faced lover who 'glads my eyes and warms my heart', and whom I long to see when the new day arrives and my joy can be restored.

I just wonder whether, with this example, sometimes we protest too much about modern 'love songs' to Jesus. It seems that in the 'ecstatic' tradition of the church, this kind of romantic language has a long pedigree.

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Well for me that I have Jesus,
O how strong I hold to him
that he might refresh my heart,
when sick and sad am I.

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Originally posted by HenryT:

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Originally posted by Basilica:

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Originally posted by sebby:
... we used to refer to ...slightly bow at every mention of the Sacred Name when it occured in the liturgy

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Some of us still do those things...

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When the priest does this during reading the Passion, it can look like some kind of nervous condition, as in some parts the Sacred Name occurs every couple of lines. A former incumbent whre I now attend bowed and crossed himself at every single one of these.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Some commentators say that the romance or sentimentality you sometimes get in church music (e.g. some Edwardian hymns, worship songs and maybe even the odd C. Wesley number) is one of the factors in making church a less comfortable environment for men than for women. Not all men, obviously, but apparently certain kinds of men find it awkward to talk about another man, even Jesus, in this way:

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known. (1912)

There's a short conversation on Youtube about this romanticising phenomenon in worship songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFljv_wit4k

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Originally posted by Chorister:
With worship songs, it's not just the words, but the combination of those with the style of singing which can lead to accusations of inappropriate intimacy. When the songs are sung by people with popular love-song voices (sounding flirty, breathy, vulnerable and helpless femme fatale-like) then the words take on an additional meaning, not entirely pure and holy!

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