|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Trevor Joyce |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
From
Rome's Wreck
(Translated from the English of Edmund Spenser's Ruines of Rome)
VII VIII IX |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
VII
You high sad wrecks and views, you Rome all fake but for the name, you tombs that still hold safe the brief slight fame of souls long gone up to their Gods; arch that's pure win, spires shot up so they scare the sky, tick tick, too bad that bit by bit you end in ash, scarce worth a laugh, your spoil our source; though for a time your frames make war on time, yet time in time will wreck your works and names, and sour your dregs. My own sad wants, rest at your ease, if time make end of things so sure it will end too my pain, and you. ■ VIII Through arms and ships Rome tamed the world, you'd think to watch that that one town did need all land and sea to bound, and set to her great sprawl due term. So good her folk were, with such fruit in sons once more as good, those sons grew yet more bold and spread their rule to weld the skies shut with earth's deeps: so that, all parts being in her grasp, no part could then hedge in Rome's realm, and though time wastes, too, states sans kings, yet time should not bring Rome so low that that head dug out of her ground, that claimed her head of all, might lie. ■ IX Hard stars, and you, you gods as harsh, skies of sheer spite, you too, false world, be it by rule or just through chance you shape the acts on earth of men; why, long since, did you work, so hard, to make this world that lasts so long? Or why were not these halls of Rome made of some stuff as strong and hard? I don't, as does the mob of fools, charge these, all things that move through moon's light, dolls of time that run to dust; no! I say this (though I don't care to cross those minds at odds with me) that one day all this all shall cease.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|