Lyrics
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all Thy quickening powers;
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours.
O raise our thoughts from things below,
From vanities and toys;
Then shall we with fresh courage go
To reach eternal joys.
Awake our souls to joyful songs;
Let pure devotion rise,
Till praise employs our thankful tongues,
And doubt forever dies.
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all Thy quickening powers;
Come, shed abroad a Savior's love,
And that shall kindle ours.
Public domain hymn text (published 1707). Words by Isaac Watts.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Isaac Watts, often called the father of English hymnody, wrote "Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove" as part of his second book of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, published in 1707 under the heading "Breathing after the Holy Spirit; or, Fervency of devotion desired." Watts, an English Congregational minister, produced hundreds of hymns over his lifetime, many still in regular use more than three centuries later, though frequent illness limited how often he could preach in person and pushed much of his energy into writing instead.
The hymn is built as a short, direct petition rather than an extended narrative or theological argument — four brief stanzas asking the Spirit, pictured in the traditional image of a dove, to kindle in the singer's own "cold hearts" the same sacred love it is asked to bring. The final verse returns almost word for word to the opening lines, framing the whole hymn as a single continuous request rather than a developing sequence of ideas.
Watts wrote at a time when English congregational singing was still dominated by strict, unadorned psalm-paraphrases, and his willingness to write more personal, image-rich hymns like this one — addressing God directly in the language of ordinary devotion rather than close translation of Scripture — helped establish the broader tradition of English hymn writing that later figures like Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts's many successors would build on.
Set since to numerous tunes, including the well-known ST. AGNES by John Bacchus Dykes, the hymn remains, over three hundred years after its first printing, one of the standard short prayers for the Holy Spirit's presence in English-language worship.
