God the foundation of their empire laid, And ruled with equal laws the sacred state. Was from the Egyptian bondage freed. When God to do this wondrous work was pleased, Great consternation nature seized: The restive floods refused to flow, Panting with fear, the winds could find no breath to blow, The astonished sea did motionless become, Horror its waters did benumb. The briny waves, that reared themselves to see The Almighty judgments, and his majesty, With terror crystallized, began to halt, Then pillars grew, and rocks of salt. Jordan, as soon as this great deed it saw, Struck with a reverential awe, Started, and with precipitation fled, The thronging waves ran backward to their head. Terror the mountains did constrain To lift themselves from off their base, And on their rocky roots to dance about the plain. The little hills, astonished at the sight, Flew to the mother-mountains in a fright, And did about them skip, as lambs Run to and bleat around their trembling dams. What ailed thee, O thou troubled sea, That thou with all thy watery troops didst flee? What ailed thee, Jordan? tell the cause That made thy flood break nature's laws; Thy course thou didst not only stop, But didst e'en backward flow, to hide What did the lofty mountains ail? What pangs of fear did all the hills assail, That they their station could not keep, But, scared with danger, ran like timorous scattered sheep? But why do I demand a cause Of your amazement, which deserves applause? Yours was a just, becoming fear; For when th' Almighty does appear, Not only you, but the whole earth should quake, Who by his great commanding word Or melt the rocks, and make their marble flow. THE SINNER'S FATE. FROM A PARAPHRASE ON JOB. WHAT if the sinner's magazines are stored His prayers to heaven hereafter to address? THOMAS FLATMAN. THOMAS FLATMAN was born in 1633. He has been honored by Wood with the title of an eminent poet; and though his writings may not entitle him to such a distinction, there is still sufficient beauty in his pieces to show that the censure bestowed on him by some recent critics is wholly undeserved. He died in 1688. Addison borrowed the first of his minor poems from Flatman's "Thought of Death." HYMN FOR THE MORNING. AWAKE, my soul! awake, mine eyes! Awake, my drowsy faculties! Awake, and see the new-born light Spring from the darksome womb of night! Look up and see the unwearied sun, Already has his race begun. The pretty lark is mounted high, Thy power has made, thy goodness kept, Yet one day more has given me That when the last of all my days is come, FOR THE EVENING. SLEEP! downy sleep! come close mine eyes, Sweet slumbers, come, and chase away The toils and follies of the day. ! On your soft bosom will I lie, While I slumber me ensnare ; But save thy suppliant free from harms, Clouds and thick darkness are thy throne, Oh! dart from thence a shining ray, A THOUGHT OF DEATH. WHEN on my sickbed I languish, Panting, groaning, speechless, dying, Oh tell me, you That have been long below, What shall I do! What shall I think, when cruel death appears, That may extenuate my fears! Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say, Be not fearful, come away ! Think with thyself that now thou shalt be free, Better thou mayst, but worse thou canst not be REV. JOHN NORRIS. JOHN NORRIS, author of numerous theological works, and of "A Collection of Miscellanies, consisting of Poems, Essays, Discourses, and Letters," was born in 1657. It has been justly said, that "in the union of learning and logical argument with sublime piety, few have equalled Norris of Bemerton." In his poem "Transient Delight," is the line, Like angels' visits, short and bright, the original of the passage in Blair's "Grave”— Visits Like those of angels, short and far between : and in Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope," Like angels' visits, few and far between. Norris was rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, and died in 1711. FAREWELL fruition, thou grand, cruel cheat, Thou mystery of fallacies. Distance presents the object fair, With charming features and a graceful air; So to the unthinking boy the distant sky |