Ascolais and the Waning Sun.

“Earth,” mused Pandelume. “A dim place, ancient beyond knowledge.
Once it was a tall world of cloudy mountains and bright rivers, and the sun was a white blazing ball.
Ages of rain and wind have beaten and rounded the granite, and the sun is feeble and red. The continents have sunk and risen.
A million cities have lifted towers, have fallen to dust. In place of the old peoples a few thousand strange souls live.
There is evil on Earth, evil distilled by time…Earth is dying and in its twilight…” he paused.

T’sais said doubtfully: “Yet I have heard Earth is a place of beauty, and I would know beauty, even though I die.”

/The Dying Earth – Jack Vance