This place had met annihilation
How long ago none could say
But it's ruins yet stood
Among the hills and forest valleys

I walked among such ruins
Since I was young
Yearning for the sights and sounds
This walls held in their prime

The craftmanship was unparalleled
Gorgeous even in destruction
The inscriptions on pillars
Beckoned me as if alive

I could never read them
For I knew not that old language
The language of a lost empire
That rose in distant ages

In my latter years I now shudder
Having studied that ancient tongue
And recalling the passages
Engraved upon those marbled archways

They spoke not of great conquests
Or kings and heroes of old
No they served only as warnings
For the generations to come

The penultimate inscription
That lay upon the palace walls
So important it was inlayed
With obsidian and gold, read thusly;

"No Utopia may exist upon this Earth.
The perfection of man is a troubled one,
Doomed from its inception.
Man seeks to put forth into the world
What does not reside within him,
And so he corrupts the world
And himself in the process.

Oh how little you know,
Son of the Second Moon.
When..."

Beneath the etchings I remember
The bones of four men
About them lay rusted chisels
And other carving tools

I noticed as well, that the inscription
Appeared unfinished
As if the engraver was stopped
Forcibly before his work was done

I reached out to touch the groove
The final character never filled
With the obsidian and gold inlay
It was colder than stone should be

But that is all I remember
As I appeared to have passed out
And woken up with the gentle sun
The following morning