Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MR. J.L., UPON HIS TREASTISE OF DIALLING, by GEORGE UBA


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MR. J.L., UPON HIS TREASTISE OF DIALLING, by                    
First Line: Old time, but for thy art, alone would pass
Last Line: Nothing a real science you create.
Subject(s): Time


OLD Time, but for thy art, alone would pass,
And idly bear his solitary glass:
Though he fly fast, thy judgement, mounted on
The wings of fancy, yokes his motion:
Each little sand falls not unquestioned by
The due observance of thy piercing eye;
Each moment you converse with so, that thus
Discoursing his stage seems not tedious:
Others, perhaps, by their mechanic art
May ask him what's o'clock, then let him part:
Thou in thy circles conjur'st him to stay,
Till he relate to thee the month and day;
All propositions of the globe dost bring
To be confest as well in dialling:
What lucky signs successively do run,
By the reclining chariot of the Sun;
And in a various dialect of schemes
Interpret'st all the motions of his beams,
How many hours each day he travels in,
When he arrives diagonal inn.
Other books show the trade of dialling,
But thine the art and reason of the thing:
Thou know'st the spring and cause that makes it go;
Addest new wheels; demonstrated all, so
That weak eyes now may see, what was before
Defective in the fam'd Osorius' store:
A limb, at least, of this celestial trade
Asleep, till now, lay in the Gnomon's shade;
Nor teachest thou, as those who first did find
With much circumference the Indian mine;
Thy needle points the nearest way, and hath
Made straight th' obliquity of the old path;
Thou nor thine art our praises need, yet I
Will for this miracle both deify.
Thine art enlightens by a shade, of that
Nothing a real science you create.





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