Rotherham Old Town Hall
The Exeter book is an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poems collected, it is thought, by a monk sometime in the tenth century. As such, it constitutes the oldest known collection of Anglo-Saxon literature from a time when most texts were in Latin.
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| The Exeter Book |
Contained within the book is a poem scholars have called "The Ruin" since the scribe did not give any of the poems a title. The poem itself is somewhat of a ruin, having been damaged by fire at some point in the mists of time. It describes a land strewn with the leftover rubble of Roman Britain, long since abandoned to The Great Barbarian Conspiracy, invasions and chaos - "Days of misfortune arrived—blows fell broadly—death seized all those sword-stout men" - "the work of giants corrupted".
The Ruin
These wall-stones are wondrous —
calamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.
Ice at the joints has unroofed the barred-gates, sheared
the scarred storm-walls have disappeared—
the years have gnawed them from beneath. A grave-grip holds
the master-crafters, decrepit and departed, in the ground’s harsh
grasp, until one hundred generations of human-nations have
trod past. Subsequently this wall, lichen-grey and rust-stained,
often experiencing one kingdom after another,
standing still under storms, high and wide—
it failed—
The wine-halls moulder still, hewn as if by weapons,
penetrated [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] savagely pulverized [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] [XXXX] shined [XXXXXXXXXX] [XXXX] adroit ancient edifice [XXXXX] [XXXXXXX] bowed with crusted-mud —
The strong-purposed mind was urged to a keen-minded desire
in concentric circles; the stout-hearted bound
wall-roots wondrously together with wire. The halls of the city
once were bright: there were many bath-houses,
a lofty treasury of peaked roofs, many troop-roads, many mead-halls
filled with human-joys until that terrible chance changed all that.
Days of misfortune arrived—blows fell broadly—
death seized all those sword-stout men—their idol-fanes were laid waste —
the city-steads perished. Their maintaining multitudes fell to the earth.
For that the houses of red vaulting have drearied and shed their tiles,
these roofs of ringed wood. This place has sunk into ruin, been broken
into heaps,
There once many men, glad-minded and gold-bright,
adorned in gleaming, proud and wine-flushed, shone in war-tackle;
There one could look upon treasure, upon silver, upon ornate jewelry,
upon prosperity, upon possession, upon precious stones,
upon the illustrious city of the broad realm.
Stone houses standing here, where a hot stream was cast
in a wide welling; a wall enfolding everything in its bright bosom,
where there were baths, heated at its heart. That was convenient,
when they let pour forth [XXXXXXXXX] over the hoary stones
countless heated streams [XXXXXXXXXXX] until the ringed pool
hot [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] where there were baths
Then is [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. That is a kingly thing—
a house [XXXXX],
Hundreds of years later, in the early nineteenth century, celebrated literary layabout and man of leisure Percy Shelley wrote on a similar theme, this time the ruins of another fallen civilisation - Egypt, in the poem Ozymandias.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Walking around modern Britain feels like walking amongst the ruins of a once great civilisation. Perhaps not yet actual rubble in most cases, but there is undoubtedly decay and corruption. Look above the tacky plastic signage on the shops selling a fabulous range of slop in any town or city in the UK, and you will often see the remnants of beautiful municipal buildings and houses.
Like in far-flung former colonies where the local savages, once touched by the modernity and civilisation we gifted them, formerly grand buildings now house traders selling tat and street slop amongst the throngs, all standards of safety, aesthetics and cleanliness abandoned to the invading hordes of a modern-day barbarian invasion in our present Dark Age.
Our people too walk zombie-like amongst the ruins and the invaders, lost, seemingly not noticing they are a broken people in a ruined land. One wonders if there are any poets moved to write a few lines of lament. That is my challenge to you.
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