How, O Sumer! Thy mighty are felled,
Thy bright wealth is looted, by others enjoyed
Thy princes are captives, to labor compelled
Thy city demolished, thy temple destroyed.

From teacher to student the mystery runs:
The humblest clay holds our words after death.
We struggled to writing through pictures and puns
And history first became more than a breath.

Bright as new bronze was the warriors' wrath
The streets where they passed painted crimson with blood
Poetry, law and religion and math
Where writing is gone are but leaves on the flood

Who can be silent, oh who can find rest?
The souls of the scribes have been shaken and dashed
Jackals and owls in our libraries nest
Our wellspring and heritage stolen and smashed.

Our works have all faded, our kings but a list
The faintest of ghosts, we won't even be mourned.
It was by creation we hoped to persist
Yet all we created is shattered and scorned.

What has become of the tablets of law
Broken to shards that no whisk will reveal
Clay that our scholars once handled with awe
Dust ground to dust by a plundering heel!