Here are the next four characters of the 千字文.
宇宙洪荒
yŭ zhòu hóng huāng
"The universe is vast and desolate."
In modern Chinese 宇宙 means "universe" or "cosmos", and it was used that way in older forms of Chinese as well. On their own, however, the characters 宇 mean "roof", "eaves", or "firmament", while 宙 can signify "ridgepole", "central beam", or, get this, time itself. This latter definition is used by Paar (as "infinite time"), but not the former two. The image of time being the ridgepole holding up the celestial canopy and thereby forming the universe is pleasing in more ways than one.
洪 evokes vastness, but among its other uses are "flooding" or "overflowing", which makes sense given the character's 水 shuĭ water radical. 荒 can involve neglect, overgrowth with weeds, and desolation, but can also mean "expansive", "unrestrained", or "dissolute". (These meanings can be guessed at from the character's components, though I reckon it's easier the other way around, i.e., once you have an idea of what the character means, you can see some of that meaning in the written components.)
Aside from reinforcing the spatial and destructive aspect of 洪, the other uses of 荒 open up some neat alternative readings of this line. This, of course, is both the blessing and curse of classical Chinese: you could read 宇宙洪荒 as "the cosmos overflows with neglect", for example, and while it might not be the most logical or commonly agreed-upon reading, it wouldn't be unequivocally wrong, either.
Man, I haven't given this much thought to Chinese in a while. I'm enjoying it, and I hope you are too, 看官.
微臣
史大偉
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