He annoys us besides by the constant recurrence of certain phrases, one or two of which are not admirable, and by using, in the midst of a simple style, odd Latin words.

Here are portions of, I think, one of his best, and good it is.
FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.
* * * * * Lord, 'tis thyself who hast impressed In native light on human breast, That their Creator all Mankind should Father call: A father's love all mortals know, And the love filial which they owe.
Our Father gives us heavenly light, And to be happy, ghostly sight; He blesses, guides, sustains; He eases us in pains; Abatements for our weakness makes, And never a true child forsakes.
He waits till the hard heart relents; Our self-damnation he laments; He sweetly them invites To share in heaven's delights; His arms he opens to receive All who for past transgressions grieve.
My Father! O that name is sweet To sinners mourning in retreat.
God's heart paternal yearns When he a change discerns; He to his favour them restores; He heals their most inveterate sores.
* * * * * Religious honour, humble awe; Obedience to our Father's law; A lively grateful sense Of tenderness immense; Full trust on God's paternal cares; Submission which chastisement bears; Grief, when his goodness we offend; Zeal, to his likeness to ascend; Will, from the world refined, To his sole will resigned: These graces in God's children shine, Reflections of the love divine.
* * * * * God's Son co-equal taught us all In prayer his Father ours to call: With confidence in need, We to our Father speed: Of his own Son the language dear Intenerates the Father's ear.

_makes tender._ Thou Father art, though to my shame, I often forfeit that dear name; But since for sin I grieve, Me father-like receive; O melt me into filial tears, To pay of love my vast arrears.
* * * * * O Spirit of Adoption! spread Thy wings enamouring o'er my head; O Filial love immense! Raise me to love intense; O Father, source of love divine, My powers to love and hymn incline! While God my Father I revere, Nor all hell powers, nor death I fear; I am my Father's care; His succours present are.
All comes from my loved Father's will, And that sweet name intends no ill.
God's Son his soul, when life he closed, In his dear Father's hands reposed: I'll, when my last I breathe, My soul to God bequeath; And panting for the joys on high, Invoking Love Paternal, die.
Born in 1657, one of the later English Platonists, John Norris, who, with how many incumbents between I do not know, succeeded George Herbert in the cure of Bemerton, has left a few poems, which would have been better if he had not been possessed with the common admiration for the rough-shod rhythms of Abraham Cowley.
Here is one in which the peculiarities of his theories show themselves very prominently.

There is a constant tendency in such to wander into the region half-spiritual, half-material.
THE ASPIRATION.
How long, great God, how long must I Immured in this dark prison lie; My soul must watch to have intelligence; Where at the grates and avenues of sense Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight, Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night?
When shall I leave this magic sphere, And be all mind, all eye, all ear?
How cold this clime! And yet my sense Perceives even here thy influence.
Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, And pant and tremble like the amorous steel.
To lower good, and beauties less divine, Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, But yet, so strong the sympathy, It turns, and points again to thee.
I long to see this excellence Which at such distance strikes my sense.
My impatient soul struggles to disengage Her wings from the confinement of her cage.
Wouldst thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, How would she hasten to be linked to thee! She'd for no angels' conduct stay, But fly, and love on all the way.
THE RETURN.
Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy! When I thy sacred mount ascend, What heavenly sweets my soul employ! Why can't I there my days for ever spend?
When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, What pity 'tis that I must down again! And yet I must: my passions would rebel Should I too long continue here: No, here I must not think to dwell, But mind the duties of my proper sphere.
So angels, though they heaven's glories know, Forget not to attend their charge below.
The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is the only sphere in which they can be combated.

Never perhaps is a saint more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of contemplation.
We find ourselves now in the zone of _hymn_-writing.