The Ruin

Don't know about everyone else, but I LOVE this poem. So, I thought I'd share it with the world. he he. Could be useful for any sort of medieval, fantasy, or anglo-saxon story - at least in my opinion, others are entitled to their own XD

Wondrous this masonry wasted by fate,
Giant-built battlements shattered and broken,
The roofs are in ruin; the towers are wrecked,
The frost-covered mortar; the cracking walls
Have sagged and toppled, weakened by Time…
Firmly the builder laid the foundations,
Cunningly bound them with iron bands;
Stately the palaces, splendid the baths,
Towers and pinnacles pointing on high;
Many a mead-hall rang with their revelry,
Many a court with the clangor of arms,

Till Fate the all-levelling laid them low.

–– The Ruin (an eighth-century A.D. Saxon poet, remarking on Roman ruins in Britain)[1]

[1] Trans. Kennedy, C. W., An Anthology of Old English Poetry, Oxford University Press, New York, 1960.