| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | On High Hill’s Top I Saw | | By Joachim du Bellay (1552–1560) |
| | Translated by Edmund Spenser
ON high hill’s top I saw a stately frame, | |
| An hundred cubits high by just assize, | |
| With hundred pillars fronting fair the same, | |
| All wrought with diamond, after Doric wise; | |
| Nor brick nor marble was the wall to view, | 5 |
| But shining crystal, which from top to base | |
| Out of her womb a thousand rayons threw, | |
| One hundred steps of Afric gold enchase: | |
| Gold was the parget; and the ceiling bright | |
| Did shine all scaly with great plates of gold; | 10 |
| The floor of jasp and emerald was dight. | |
| O, world’s vainness! while thus I did behold, | |
| An earthquake shook the hill from lowest seat, | |
| And overthrew this frame with ruin great. | | | | |
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