The Pharos Lighthouse the tallest structure in the world,
Shone over the ships in the harbour their sails unfurled,
Ready to meet the oncoming battle and Caesar out at sea,
The breeze strong enough to carry them forward swiftly.
Then came a sudden black rain of arrows burning bright,
Cutting the cloak of darkness and setting them all alight,
Who could think the Romans would be so reckless as this?
Panic ensued as only some entered the water with a chilling hiss.
The flames reached the sails and the tinder dry wooden fleet,
The crews in pandemonium beat a hasty and crude retreat,
Fires ignited and thousands of sparks were carried far and wide,
Reaching the great city and quickly started spreading inside.
Sailor's left the water like rats deserting and jumping ship,
Drenched and confused this wasn't supposed to be their trip,
To cut Caesar off and skuttle his army was their only mission,
Now Alexandria burns and the warnings have come to fruition.
The scholars in the shrine of the muses were still at work,
And in the library even in the shadows citizens browse and lurk,
Ever using the only time they had to check out the accessible books,
Though most could only read of a fashion they cast curious looks.
Here in the Alexandria Museum many people were still ignorant,
As the blaze took hold and swept by the wind became defiant,
Growing in size and strength that no force but the Gods could slow,
Like an iron first crushing the buildings and the crowds' flow.
It was the sparks that drifted in through an open window,
That let them notice first the scene in the distance as a faint glow,
Which came in on a pool of light as the Pharos burned still,
The latter less deadly and destructive not sent forth by Roman will.
A scream and shouts were eventually heard in the Great Library now,
As the first of the embers came in and hit the parchments somehow,
Igniting them like tinder and slowly smouldering at first,
It wasn't long before they too set alight with a hungry thirst.
Scholars who were drilled long past for such an eventuality,
Ran to the vaults where the most valuable artefacts would be,
A plan was ever ready due to the amount of candles they burned,
Knowing the perils of careless tired people who sadly never learned.
But what they hadn't expected was the magnitude of the blaze,
Set in hundreds of tiny spots in this cavernous paper maze,
Papyrus, paper, maps and books all went up equally as fast,
Charts and etchings, art and all the gathered wonders to the last.
Nobody thought clearly enough to shut the huge windows,
As this side of the city all the smoke and sparks constantly flows,
And like the harbour people just screamed and frightened ran,
Forgetting the wonders which would soon be lost to all man.
What few things could be loaded safely into the carts they took,
But time was not on their side they were surely fresh out of luck,
As the mules and oxen pulling the treasure chucked in with hay,
Slowly strained to the weight and made very slow headway.
And yes even as the old clay jars kept safe on their soft bed,
It was inevitable that there too the flaming embers were led,
And as a few rolled away in the opposite direction,
Tiny smoke trails follow them taking hold without detection.
The blunders can all be regretted when days later it is out,
When the cries and woes of what and who they lost turn to angry shout,
The finger of accusation pointing this way and then quickly to that,
All place the blame but Alexandrians mourn where they sat.
Amongst the ash and smouldering wreck of a city burned,
Where once every scholar and historian proudly yearned,
To seek an education and expand their limited knowledge,
For us like being sent away to some wonderful college.
Great and powerful Alexandria may itself recover like the phoenix,
Rising from the ashes and all the destruction trying to fix,
But some things are gone forever there are no duplicates or copies,
They can never replace the antiquities and treasures of all of this.
Thousands dead and their bodies still charred and smelling rotten,
People swept to the side along with the roofs and rubble forgotten,
Shelves and cases once crammed with the wisdom of ages past,
Now wasted away and just soot and dust unable to survive the blast.
Pyrotechnic natural explosions for the fluids they use to preserve,
Stored in boxes all around the library and held in copious reserve,
Little had they realised they would unwittingly aid the fire so well,
Shame for the scholar who could not predict this or fate foretell.
So it comes to smoke you can see for miles around plumes of black,
For some they had to flee from all the misery there's no going back,
Others just hoped optimistically to build bigger and better perhaps,
That was too expectant, loss not fully known, just a momentary lapse.
Alas, though some things were retrieved and lessons learned,
The Library of Alexandria never really ever properly returned,
How could it when objects of which we shall never see the like again,
Have disappeared inconsequential and we truly can't appreciate the pain?
Woe for Alexandria and the loss to all the world with its books,
The myriad of cultures who donated for others' benefit and looks,
All the great philosophers and men of knowledge who gained alot,
No more to gather and converse or debate at this very special spot.
Farewell to the wealth of the worlds knowledge for unlike treasure,
It cannot be weighed in simple cost for it is indeed without measure,
From thousands of years worth of man's early script and drawing,
We come to the end, a wasted wreck of a library, a new day dawning.