What are the motifs in Beware of Ruins by A. D. Hope?

Death is a recurring idea. This poem is not about literal death, but death in a figurative sense: the death of the past in the present and the present in the past. The narrator cautions us that while we might want to imaginatively follow the beckoning arm of the white-as-death statue into a "love restored," and imaginatively remake the scummy pool into a beautiful fountain, we must be careful because the past is dead to us. And literal reconstruction is no better, even if based on the memories of many people, and thereby more accurate.