Some time in the 8th or 9th century, somewhere on the island of Great Britain, an unknown British

poet clambered through the rubble of an overgrown ruin. Like so many people from this age,

which has been called the Dark Ages, we don't know this poet's name. We don't know when

they were born or when they died, even where they're from. But they wrote a poem in the language

of old English that has survived to this day, and that poem gives us a glimpse into the

lost and decaying world they inhabited. It was a world of mystery, scattered with the

enormous crumbling ruins of a bygone age.

Radlish is this qualistan, how wondrous this wallstone, shattered by fate, castles a smash

the work of giants crumbled, ruined the roofs, tumbled the towers, broken the barred

gates, frost in the plaster, shearing to gaping, torn away, fallen, eaten by a aldo under

ray or tornay.

This poem is known simply as the ruin, and it's thought the ruin it describes is that of the British

Roman town of Bath. The poem itself has come down to us as something of a ruined object,

too. It was damaged by fire at some point in history so that its words break off and cut out,

just like the shattered masonry it describes. But what we have is enough to picture the crumbling

ruined buildings and the effect they had on its poet. You can almost feel the light falling

through the broken roof and smell the still water while luxurious baths once stood. You

can picture the solitary figure of the poet clambering over the piles of masonry, and

you can almost hear them wondering who built this place. How did they construct the vaults

of these cavernous halls and why, after everything they'd built, did they leave it all behind?

My name's Paul Cooper, and you're listening to the Fall of Civilization's podcast. Each episode,

I look at a civilization of the past that rose to glory and then collapsed into the ashes of

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