Sometimes...

The following passage:

is in "Ghetto," the first Kith short story by Poul Anderson;
was removed by Anderson when he adapted the story as Chapter 21 of Starfarers;
is semi-poetic;
conveys a sense of the history of Kith Town (see here).

"The Town ended as sharply as if cut off by a knife. It had been like that for 3000 years, a sanctuary from time: sometimes it stood alone on open windy moors, with no other works of man in sight except a few broken walls; sometimes it was altogether swallowed by a roaring monster of a city; sometimes, as now, it lay on the fringe of a great commune; but always it was the Town, changeless and inviolate."
-Poul Anderson, "Ghetto" IN Anderson, Maurai And Kith (New York, 1982), pp. 171-214 AT p. 188.

(The text goes on to deny the validity of "...always...")

I like the "...open windy moors...," especially when they are contrasted with the "...roaring monster of a city..." Nothing shows the impact of mankind more than the fact that a single point on the Earth's surface is sometimes out in the open and sometimes in the middle of a city. It is as if the Town is the Time Machine and the time-dilated Kithfolk are futureward time travelers. We have not exhausted this series yet.