JOHN NORRIS.

BORN 1657; DIED 1711.

In the union of learning, and acuteness, metaphysical and logical, with sublime piety, few have equalled "Norris of Bemerton"-for so he is styled, from having, during many years, held the living of that village, illustrious also as the retreat of the pious and accomplished George Herbert. The catalogue of Mr. Norris's writings is very numerous: among the chief are, "Miscellanies;" "Reason and Religion;" "Christian Blessedness;""Practical Discourses," and, "A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Immortality of the Soul."

JOHN NORRIS.

AN HYMN UPON THE TRANSFIGURATION.

HAIL, King of glory, clad in robes of light!
Outshining all we here call bright!
Hail, light's divinest galaxy!

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 ?
Or did some curious angel's chymic art
The spirits of purest light impart,
Drawn from the native spring of day,
And wrought into an organized ray?

Howe'er 'twas done, 'tis glorious and divine,
Thou dost with radiant wonders shine.

The sun with his bright company,

Are all gross meteors, if compared to thee.
Thou art the fountain whence their light does flow,
But to thy will thine own dost owe.

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
Their tributary offering.

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,
And follow this bright guide of fire.

Do thou thy hymns and praises bring,
Whilst angels, with veil'd faces, anthems sing.

THE THIRD CHAPTER OF JOB PARAPHRASED.

CURS'D, ever curs'd be that unhappy day,
When first the sun's unwelcome ray
I saw with trembling eyes, being newly come
From the dark prison of the womb;

When first to me my vital breath was lent,
That breath which now must all in sighs be spent.

Let not the sun his cheering beams display

Upon that wretched, wretched day;
But mourn in sables, and all over shroud
His glories in a sullen cloud.

Let light to upper regions be confin'd,
And all below as black as is my mind.

Curs'd be the night which first began to lay
The groundwork of this house of clay:
Let it not have the honour to appear
In the retinue of the year;

Let all the days shun its society,
Hate, curse, abandon it, as much as I.

Let Melancholy call that night her own,

Then let her sigh, then let her groan;
A general grief throughout all nature spread,
With folded arms and drooping head.
All harps be still, or tun'd to such a strain
As fiends may hear, and yet not ease their pain.

Let neither moon nor stars, with borrow'd light,
Checker the blackness of that night;
But let a pure unquestion'd darkness rear
Her sooty wings all o'er the air,

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
At once for life and misery ?

Why did I not uncloister'd from the womb
Take my next lodging in a tomb?
Why with such cruel tenderness and care
Was I nurs'd up to sorrow and despair?

For now in sweet repose might I have lain,
Secure from any grief or pain;

Uutouch'd with care, my bed I should have made
In death's cool and refreshing shade:

I should have slept now in a happy place,
All calm and silent as the empty space.

BB