My knowledge sharpen, sarcels [i.e. pinions] lend my thought;
Grant me, time’s Father, world-containing King
A pow’r, of thee in pow’rful lays to sing,
That as thy beauty in earth lives, heaven shines,
So it may dawn or shadow in my lines.”
(ll. 1–16.)
At the close he prays:
“What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee,
Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see
Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might,