Come Down, O Love Divine

Come Down, O Love Divine
	Christian hymn
	15th C. Pentecost altarpiece by Alvise Vivarini depicting tongues of fire descending on the Apostles
Occasion	Pentecost
Written	c. 1390
Text	translation by Richard Frederick Littledale
Based on	"Discendi amor santo" by Bianco da Siena
Meter	6.6.11 D
Melody	Down Ampney by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Composed	1906
Published	1867

"Come Down, O Love Divine" is a Christian hymn usually sung for the festival of Pentecost. It makes reference to the descent of the Holy Spirit as an invocation to God to come to into the soul of the believer. It is a popular piece of Anglican church music and is commonly sung to the tune Down Ampney by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

History

The text of "Come down, O Love divine" originated as an Italian poem, "Discendi amor santo" by the medival mystic poet Bianco da Siena (1350-1399). The poem appeared in the 1851 collection Laudi Spirituali del Bianco da Siena of Telesforo Bini, and in 1861, the Anglo-Irish clergyman and writer Richard Frederick Littledale translated it into English. The first publication of the English version was in Littledale's 1867 hymn-book, The People's Hymnal.[1][2][3]

The village of Down Ampney, after which the hymn tune was named

For the hymn's publication in The English Hymnal of 1906, the hymnal's editor Ralph Vaughan Williams composed a tune, Down Ampney, which he named after the Gloucestershire village of his birth. This publication established the hymn's widespread popularity.[4] When Vaughan Williams died in 1958, "Come Down, O Love Divine" was sung at his funeral in Westminster Abbey as the composer's ashes were ceremonially interred in the Musicians' Corner.[5]

Text

Come down, O Love divine,
seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

Tune

The following setting of the tune (Down Ampney) appears in The English Hymnal (1906):

References

Citations

"Come Down, O Love Divine". Hymnary.org. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
McKim 1993, p. 314.
Adey 1986, p. 181.
Bradley 2006, p. 87.
Holmes 2011.

Sources

Adey, Lionel (1986). Hymns and the Christian Myth. UBC Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-0257-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Bradley, Ian (2006). Daily Telegraph Book of Hymns. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-8264-8282-2. Retrieved 1 June 2020.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Holmes, Paul (2011). "Epilogue". Vaughan Williams: Illustrated Lives Of The Great Composers. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-570-5. Retrieved 1 June 2020.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
McKim, LindaJo H. (1993). The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 314. ISBN 978-0-664-25180-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) CS1 maint: date and year (link)