Having mentioned the Tower of London in yesterday's post put me in mind of Sonnet 64, which also mentions this particular type of structure. In this case, though, there's more than one, and the fact that they are "down-razed" has made the poem a reminder of 9/11 to many readers (including this one). It could be argued that the poem's central theme is that of time's cruelty and what we can do about it (not waste it, basically). But poetry is magic, as Auden once wrote, and themes change as our minds do, as does everything.

Sonnet 64

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the watery main,

Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.