It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees, <br />It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs. <br />I am able to roam for hours <br />Through the labyrinth of the main library, floor to floor. <br />But yesterday, looking for the words of masters and prophets, <br />I wandered into high regions <br />That are visited by practically no one. <br />I would open a book and could decipher nothing. <br />For letters faded and disappeared from the pages. <br />Woe! I exclaimed-so it comes to this? <br />Where are you, venerable ones, with your beards and wigs, <br />Your nights spent by a candle, griefs of your wives? <br />So a message saving the world is silenced forever? <br />At your home it was the day of making preserves. <br />And your dog, sleeping by the fire, would wake up, <br />Yawn, and look at you, as if knowing.<br /><br />Czeslaw Milosz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/woe/
