Let hoary TIME's vast Bowels be the Grave To what his Bowels birth and being gave; Let Nature die, if (PHAENIX-like) from death Revived Nature take a second breath; In on TIMES right hand, sit faire HISTORIE; If, from the seed of empty Ruine, she Can raise so faire an HARVEST: Let Her be Ne're so farre distant, yet CHRONOLOGIE (Sharpe sighted as the EAGLES eye, that can Out-stare the broad-beam'd Dayes Meridian) Will have a PERSPICILL to finde her out, And, through the NIGHT of error and dark doubt, Discerne the DAWNE of Truth's eternall ray, As when the rosie MORNE budds into Day. Now that TIME'S Empire might be amply fill'd, BABELS bold Artists strive (below) to build Ruine a Temple; on whose fruitfull fall HISTORY reares her PYRAMIDS more tall Then were th' AEgyptian (by the life, these give, Th' AEgyptian Pyramids themselves must live:) On these she lifts the WORLD; and on their base Shewes the two termes and limits of TIME'S race: That, the CREATION is; the JUDGEMENT, this; That, the World's MORNING, this her MIDNIGHT is. |