The lines that describe the decline and fall of the city are the following:
- 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.
- 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.
- This place has sunk into ruin, been broken into heaps,