(no subject)

How Much For Three?

History, that Hellene Sibyl, speaks
In riddles, burns the pages, stays the price.
Like Virgil, she recites and we misread;
Unto aeternitas we grope for light.
This stone and clay, papyrus, sheepskin tanned
Which shows as time progresses what she was
Is even so destroyed by that which reads
The roots of our humanity. So thus
We look on History's face through crystal eyes
Surrounded by a thousand clacking gears
Which keep a record of our scars on her
In magnet tapes and discs. Down through the years
Will little silver rounds read easier
Than painted walls which heard Iskander sing?
(Fate, History's sister, never promised us
More kindness than she showed Etruscan kings.)
Alas, the books which foolish Tarquin bought
Burned on the Capitoline, and answer naught.