Classic Poem

Let hoary TIME's vast Bowels be the Grave
To what his Bowels birth and being gave;
Let Nature die, if (P HÆNIX -like) from death
Revived Nature take a second breath;
If 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 E AGLES eye, that can
Out-stare the broad-beam'd Dayes Meridian)
Will have a P ERSPICILL to finde her out,
And, through the N IGHT of error and dark doubt,
Discerne the D AWNE of Truth's eternall ray,
As when the rosie M ORNE budds into Day.
Now that Time 's Empire might be amply fill'd,
B ABELS bold Artists strive (below) to build
Ruine a Temple; on whose fruitfull fall
HISTORY reares her P YRAMIDS more tall
Then were th' Ægyptian (by the life, these give,
Th' Ægyptian 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 M ORNING , this her M IDNIGHT is.