CROSSING CHANNELS: 1ST FREE POESY

Parco della Musica meets Spenser's traduction of du Bellay as Ruines of Rome: more to come on the judgment of this sonnet-cycle as infelicitous, & anzi, its stretchings of English. 22

When that brave honour of the Latin name, Which bound her rule with Africa, and Byze, With Thames' inhabitants of noble fame, And they which see the dawning day arise; Her nurslings did with mutinous uproar Hearten against herself, her conquer'd spoil, Which she had won from all the world afore, Of all the world was spoil'd within a while. So when the compass'd course of the universe In six and thirty thousand years is run, The bands of th' elements shall back reverse To their first discord, and be quite undone: The seeds, of which all things at first were bred, Shall in great Chaos' womb again be hid.