කවිය

in many cases it seems like a writer's work will be lost to history, but somehow it endures and gets passed on and achieves lastingness. 

sometimes writers don't seem to know the real merits of their work || or maybe they do, I don't know || it's always impressive when they know and they announce it....like Alexander Pope saying that he was going to write the perfect pastoral poem, and then he did, and William Wordsworth saying that he was going to write a new kind of poetry that would change poetry forever, and he did. and this is how Ovid concludes his Metamorphoses: 

And now my work is done, which neither the wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor sword, nor the gnawing tooth of time shall ever be able to undo. When it will, let that day come which has no power save over this mortal frame, and end the span of my uncertain years. Still in my better part I shall be borne immortal far beyond the lofty stars and I shall have an undying name. Wherever Rome’s power extends over the conquered world, I shall have mention on men’s lips, and, if the prophecies of bards have any truth, through all the ages shall I live in fame.

Rome fell, but Ovid's work has endured.