Object of my first desire

Object of my first desire. Augustus Montague Toplady* (1740-1778). First published in The Gospel Magazine (October, 1774) in four 8-line stanzas, beginning ‘Happiness, thou lovely Name’. The theme of the hymn is the search for happiness, which is found not in worldly things but in a trust in Christ crucified and resurrected. Thus the hymn began: Happiness, thou lovely Name, Where’s thy Seat, O tell me, where? Learning, Pleasure, Wealth and Fame, All cry out, ‘It is not here’: Not the Wisdom of the Wise Can inform me where it lies, Not the Grandeur of the Great Can the Bliss I seek create. The form of the stanza is unusual: a quatrain rhyming ABAB is followed by two rhyming...