ON THE FRONTISPIECE OF ISAACSONS CHRONOLOGIE EXPLAINED (1) by RICHARD CRASHAW

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.

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