Set then your eyes in method, and behold
Time's emblem, Saturn; who, when store of gold
Coin'd the first age, devour'd that birth he fear'd;
Till history, time's eldest child, appear'd,
And, phoenix-like, in spite of Saturn's rage,
Forced from her ashes heirs in every age.
From th' rising sun, obtaining by just suit,
A spring's ingender, and an autumn's fruit.
Who in those volumes, at her motion penn'd,
Unto creation's Alpha doth extend.
Again ascend, and view chronology,
By optic skill pulling far history
Nearer; whose hand the piercing eagle's eye
Strengthens to bring remotest objects nigh.
Under whose feet you see the setting sun,
From the dark gnomon, o'er her volumes run,
Drown'd in eternal night, never to rise
Till resurrection show it to the eyes
Of earth-worn men; and her shrill trumpet's sound
Affright the bones of mortals from the ground :
The columns both are crown'd with either sphere,
To show chronology and history bear
No other culmen than the double art
Astronomy, geography impart.
ET hoary Time's vast bowels be the grave
To what his bowels birth, and being gave;
Let Nature die, and, phoenix-like, from
Revived Nature take a second breath;
If, on Time's right hand sit fair history;
If, from the seed of empty ruin she
Can raise so fair an harvest, let her be
Ne'er so far distant, yet chronology,
Sharp-sighted as the eagle's eye, that can
Outstare the broad-beam'd day's meridian,
Will have a perspicil to find her out;
And, through the night of error, and dark doubt,
Discern the dawn of truth's eternal ray,
As when the rosy morn buds into day!
Now that Time's empire might be amply fill'd,
Babel's bold artists strive, below, to build
Ruin a temple; on whose fruitful fall
History rears her pyramids, more tall
Than were th' Egyptian! by the life, these give,
Th' Egyptian pyramids themselves must live:
On these she lifts the world; and, on their base,
Shows the two terms and limits of Time's race:
That the creation is; the judgment this;
That the world's morning; this her midnight is!
AN EPITAPH UPON MR. ASHTON, A CONFORMABLE CITIZEN.
HE modest front of this small floor,
Believe me, reader, can say more
Than many a braver marble can,—
"Here lies a truly honest man!"
One whose conscience was a thing
That troubled neither church nor king;
One of those few that in this town
Honour all preachers; hear their own.
Sermons he heard, yet not so many
As left no time to practise any;
He heard them reverendly, and then
His practise preach'd them o'er again;
His parlour-sermons rather were
Those to the eye, than to the ear;
His prayers took their price and strength
Not from the loudness nor the length ;
He was a protestant at home,
Not only in despite of Rome;
He loved his father, yet his zeal
Tore not off his mother's veil ;
To th' church he did allow her dress,
True beauty to true holiness;
Peace, which he loved in life, did lend
Her hand to bring him to his end;
When age and death call'd for the score,
No surfeits were to reckon for;
Death tore not, therefore, but, sans strife,
Gently untwined his thread of life.
What remains, then, but that thou
Write these lines, reader, on thy brow,
And, by his fair example's light
Burn in thy imitation bright?
So, while these lines can but bequeath
A life, perhaps, unto his death,
His better epitaph shall be—
His life still kept alive in thee.
OME, and let us live, my dear,
Let us love and never fear
What the sourest fathers say;
Brightest Sol, that dies to day,
Lives again as blithe to-morrow;
But if we, dark sons of sorrow,
Set, O then, how long a night
Shuts the eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A thousand and a hundred score,
A hundred and a thousand more,
Till another thousand smother
That, and that wipe off another.
Thus at last, when we have number'd
Many a thousand, many a hundred,
We'll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose ourselves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply,
As shall mock the envious eye.
Meet you her, my Wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye call'd my absent kisses.
I wish her beauty,
That owes not all its duty
To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie.
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