Oh woe, for the youth with their heads bent low, entranced by the flickering screen,
Who scoff at the jade and the porcelain old, where emperors' whispers have been.
The hands that once carved with a patient grace now tap at a glass-lit gloom,
And treasures lie bare in the dust of the past, unheeded in shadowed tomb.
Where once stood a chest with its marquetry fine, and mahogany deep as the sea,
Now lingers the gleam of a featureless slab, as lifeless as lifeless can be.
The amphora rests in a case all alone, its beauty no longer adored,
For who seeks the craft of the ancients now, when pixels and plastics are stored?
The kiln’s gentle breath and the glassblower’s song are lost in the hum of the hive,
And lacquered wood, with its tales untold, is spurned where the circuits thrive.
The gods of old, once cast in bronze, are banished for blinking lights,
And furniture built to outlive its man is traded for things of bytes.
Oh blind are the young to the soul in stone, to the spirit in celadon pale,
To the whispers that dance in the weave of a rug, in the glint of a Grecian grail.
They barter their time for the latest device, a trinket to last but a year,
While the art of the past, untouched, remains, a muse for the few who revere.
But hush! Let them scorn, let them drift, let them chase what will soon be dust,
For Time, like the potter, shapes all anew, and wisdom will teach them to trust.
One day they shall pause, in a hall dim-lit, where relics of splendour gleam,
And there in the hush of the ages past, they’ll wake from their hollow dream.
(By John Shenton)