Blood, sweat, and bronze, shod hooves on grinding stone,

There of this strife were ancient empires born,

Yet all that vaunted might, where has it gone—

Rubbled to footnotes in some long-lost rune?

From fearsome tales to excerpts, leather-bound,

Weathered chronicles entombed in lines

Whose breathless songs once flouted hallowed ground—

Here quelled in dust, to parchment now resigned.

Is this the fate the mighty to befall?

That once upon a time, once long ago

A ruler, sword in hand, did govern all,

His stories scribed in boiling blood now cold?

A faded battered book recounts that rage—

As apathetic fingers turn each page.