JOHN NORRIS. AN HYMN UPON THE TRANSFIGURATION. HAIL, King of glory, clad in robes of light! Hail, express image of the Deity! Could now thy amorous spouse thy beauties view, How would her wounds all bleed anew! Lovely thou art all o'er and bright, Thou Israel's glory, and thou Gentiles' light. But whence this brightness, whence this sudden day? Who did thee thus with light array? Did thy divinity dispense To its consort a more liberal influence ? Howe'er 'twas done, 'tis glorious and divine, The sun with his bright company, Are all gross meteors, if compared to thee. For (as at first) thou didst but say, 'Let there be light,' and straight sprang forth this wondrous day. Let now the eastern princes come, and bring There needs no star to guide their flight, They'll find thee now, great King, by thine own light. And thou, my soul, adore, love, and admire, Do thou thy hymns and praises bring, THE THIRD CHAPTER OF JOB PARAPHRASED. CURS'D, ever curs'd be that unhappy day, When first to me my vital breath was lent, Let not the sun his cheering beams display Upon that wretched, wretched day; Let light to upper regions be confin'd, Curs'd be the night which first began to lay Let all the days shun its society, Let Melancholy call that night her own, Let neither moon nor stars, with borrow'd light, Such as once on th' abyss of chaos lay, Not to be pierc'd by stars, scarce by the edge of day. Why was there, then-ah, why-a passage free Why did I not uncloister'd from the womb For now in sweet repose might I have lain, Uutouch'd with care, my bed I should have made I should have slept now in a happy place, BB There, where great emperors their heads lay down, Enjoy that solid peace which here in vain, None of hell's agents can or dare molest No prisoners' sighs, no groanings of the slave, From toil and labour here they ever cease, Why then does Heaven on mortals life bestow, My sighs flow thick, my groans sound from afar, THE INFIDEL. FAREWELL, fruition, thou grand cruel cheat, Which first our hopes dost raise, and then defeat; Farewell, thou midwife, to abortive bliss, Thou mystery of fallacies. Distance presents the object fair, With charming features, and a graceful air; So to the unthinking boy the distant sky He with ambitious haste climbs the ascent, But when, with an unwearied pace, And yet 'twas long e'er I could throughly see This grand impostor's frequent treachery: Though often fool'd, yet I should still dream on Of pleasure in reversion : Though still he did my hopes deceive, His fair pretensions I would still believe. Such was my charity, that though I knew And found him false, yet I would think him true. But now he shall no more with shows deceive, His fallacies, that now they're known.- THE CHOICE. Stet quicunque volet potens No, I shan't envy him, whoe'er he be, I'd rather be secure than great. |