History

Now history as you will see is more than just old news

For it concerns our ancestry and holds important clues

The claim that it repeats itself is not designed to scare

But save us from our past mistakes and ever more despair.

It tells us tales of kings and queens and dates of key events

Of civil wars and uprisings that made so little sense

Of treaties binding hostile states that brought uncertain peace

And daring deeds that sealed the fates of Rome and Ancient Greece.

The tragedy of empires and their highfalutin priests

Who cast their foes on flaming pyres at sacrificial feasts

The slow path to democracy against the will of some

The power and hypocrisy to which some men succumb.

Of galleons built of sturdy oak that flew with sails unfurled

And modern thinking that awoke to influence the world

The poets and the playwrights and the authors of new laws

Who fought long hours for human rights on far-flung distant shores.

Some history’s a mystery as endless gaps remain

The site of lost Atlantis and the treasure chests of Spain

But when the next historians take time to think of us

Will they weigh up the way we are with ‘Man was ever thus’?