The Ruin

Shattered by Fate! The castles rend asunder
The work of giants moldereth away
Its towers crumble
Aquae Sulis, in ruin
The mortar white with frost
The mighty men who built it, they of giants renown
Departed hence, undone by death, are held
Fast in the earth’s embrace
While overhead for living men
A hundred generations pass
Long this red wall, now mossy gray, withstood
While kingdom followed kingdom in the land
Wide-wasting was the battle where they fell
Plague-laden days upon the city came:
Yet the wall surrounded all with its bright bosom
There stood the courts of stone
Hence to reign hereafter, the Angle!