Sir Walter Ralegh's "Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay"

No need to break this poem apart (although it is pretty cool that the book happened to fall on a poem about the Fairy Queen):

"Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,

Within that temple of vestel flame

Was wont to burn; and passing by that way

To see that buried dust of living fame,

Whose tomb fair love and fairer virtue kept,

All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen;

At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept,

And from thenceforth those graces were not seen,

For they this Queen; in whose stead

Oblivion laid him down on Laura's Hearse.

Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,

And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce;

Where Homer's sprite did tremble for grief,

And cursed th' access of that celestial thief."

To be honest, I don't like this sonnet; it doesn't seem that well-crafted . . . and Spenser never finsihed his epic . . . I wonder if Ralegh would have still written this if he would have known that

. . . Did Petrarch write epics (I don't know . . . I assume he did since there is that comparsion)

Took me awhile to get the title . . . but I get and it's a great jab . . . Petrarch is dead . . . welcome the new and the better: Spenser!

Homer is better than Spenser in my belief, but I won't fault Ralegh for that . . . at least Ralegh admits to what Spenser is: a mimic.

I also find it odd that Ralegh didn't use the Spenser's spelling for the Fairy Queen. How can you praise something and not at least spell it the same way the author does (I remember Tolkein had a fit when the publishers tried to change his plural spellings for dwarves and elves (which are now the accepted way) . . . I would take Ralegh more seriousily if he mentioned something about the cantos (or at least used some of Spenser's archiac spellings)