‘Tis but thy name that is my victory; Thou art thyself, more than my heart could view. O what a name? is it not all? all hope, all love, all grace, all pow’r and life itself? The Lord. The great I AM? O, what an awesome name!
What’s in a name? That which we call our God By any other name would not be Him;
So Yahweh would, were he not Yahweh call’d, Become our own perfection which is poor Reflection shattered. Oh my God, what a name And for that name which is my victory I give myself.
You may recognise something of this soliloquy. In the original, Juliet speaks of her love, Romeo, and determines that his name is meaningless, his identity as a son of Montague counts for nothing. In my rewriting I have sought to maintain the meter and progression of the original piece. However when applied to Yahweh – the name is ‘everything’. When applied to Jesus: his sonship is of vital, victorious importance. This rewriting originated from Psalm 20:6, with the realisation that, banners lifted to any other name will fail.
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