nostr:npub1typ5we79rr527q30467hfz8ptfy0h8gxpmfn7j64ak6pk6pv4rfszzc8hh Sorry to remind you about ancient Rome, but Smith's poem recalls the Old English poem about Roman ruins:

Wondrous is this foundation – the fates have broken and shattered this city; the work of giants crumbles.
The roofs are ruined, the towers toppled,
frost in the mortar has broken the gate,
torn and worn and shorn by the storm,
eaten through with age. The earth’s grasp
holds the builders, rotten, forgotten,
the hard grip of the ground, until a hundred
generations of men are gone.