The Last Brown Bookshop in Plymouth.

Shelved, rows of tomes attend silently
Their voices muted, by human tragedy.
For just a short while, they were in my lair
But now must leave my humble care.

These books made up my life's delight,
But once my companion gave up her fight,
I lost the will, to listen to their charms
So they seek, new bibliophile farms.

Tomes of splendid knowledge held
Now! At last the tree is felled
Not by wood man's axe or saw
But by humans evolutionary law.

Vellum boards yap edge bound,
Incunabula is also found.
Amongst this biblion treasury
Human knowledge from eternity. 

Amidst, multi faceted, human history
Leather bound books stood gracefully.
Tanned hides, gilt decorated spines
Add credence, to their times.

The earliest book form, was a roll
On one side only spoke the toll.
In column series the reader read
Of past achievements of the dead.

Readers difficulties met with fortitude
Each word joined in their multitude.
Punctuation did not exist in any form
Plain written text was not the norm.

Each scholar used his own convention
And what he lacked become invention.
The first punctuation a dot after each word
Out of which came the separate verb.

Colometry the separation of text
Made practicable poetic respect.
Lyrical verse often written as prose
A tributary from which poems grow?

In the fifth century, before the holy birth
The book trade planted in bounteous earth.
The book evolved from a literary scroll
Imparting philosophy was an early roll.

Voices swept along histories, printed past,
Homer,Plato, Seneca, Aristotle, Ovid cast
From ancient times, the muses allowed
These hearts full of poesy, to be endowed.

Homeric verse from an oral tradition
Takes two hundred years for a written rendition.
To spawn many tales of melancholy woe
To give birth, to more supernatural foe.

Homers Iliad relates a Greek tale
Of immortal and human gale.
That blew across Troy's rich golden acres
Its mighty winds are hero makers.

Hector defender of Troy's integrity
Spills Greek blood with heroic laxity.
Achilles with Zeus, highest godly lord
Slays Hector, for Troy's maritime hoard. 

The Odyssey! Emerged from Greek dark ages
To paint florid scenes on literary pages.
This folk tale of the returned super-hero
Draws a picture of deep chiaroscuro.

Homer regales on Greek humanity
He also declares godly vanity.
Mythological stories of mankind
Gems held within, for modernity to find.

As is the truth in many human affairs
Necessity often spawns  the brave to dare.
Experimentation to produce gain
Held this truth, for a writers aim.

Egyptian embargo on papyrus, meant
Pergamum invented parchment.
To write and illuminate on each page
Magnificent Godly treasure, all man made.

To the Greek, Roman educated multitudes.
Pass out great philosophical attitudes,
Later human scholars began to sing
Of the special message these bells did ring.

Described as everyday human mechanics
Aristotle's science of being. Metaphysics
Enjoined idealistic spiritualism
with materialistic realism.

Language mirrors worlds natural structure
Organs combine with human laws of nature.
Epistemic scholars in philology
Attach it to theist theology.

Ovid! Made his metamorphic words
Flip through the worlds historic herds
He transformed knowledge from dreams
All to extol virtues themes.

Often for no more than a maidens kiss
Ovid transforms reality to myth
With mythological Encyclopaedic poses
He created “ Metamorphosis”.

Epistemology, deals in truth and knowledge
With pensive natural limits to acknowledge.
Qualities of reasoned true belief
Determine degree of learned brief.

Philosophers, thinkers, of many notions
Expand their thoughts, to great ovations.
Augustine renounced all riches or honour,
Which cause man, to take belladonna.

Augustine argued for happiness to stay
Man had to believe his soul, not to lay.
His mortal body reduced by aged fate
Immortality be man's soul, in holy state.

Ancient pagan philosophy departed
Into Christian ideals supplanted.
Socrates, Plato the Aristotle schools
All usurped by Christian educated galls.

Pagans with heretic multi god  beliefs
Tended to divide the human brief.
Hebrew deities acceptance of one God
Many philosophers thought, this not odd.

Theological theories altered course
The written word become another source.
Soon potentates were in confused state,
Religions revelations secured their fate.

These new ruling classes of a different kind
Inclined towards the, Christian thought, divine.
Seeing multitudes endowed with simple faith
Pass eternal power to every mortal waif.

Christian philosophers for advancement
Took the Hebrew, Holy Testament.
Hand written by devoted priory,
To form an early tribal library.

Illuminated as The Holy Bible
Becomes publishers most viable
Tome, with its many holy voices
singing praises and rejoices.

Mortals discovered an immortal bloom
Within their body, the spirit has room,
To blossom, within Christians naive face
Courage to trace, a world without grace.

Genesis! Paints the worlds first holy spring
Gods own hand designed everything.
Intrepid man commits his first sin
Womanhood defiled, as mans plaything.

Exodus! Extols Moses apostolic life
He journeys from the Pharaohs strife.
His brethren taken from Egyptian shores
Four books relate to Mosses chores.

Other books tell of histories wisdom
Of Kingly practices and serfdom.
Amongst the tribes and their leaders
Books give birth to many readers.

The Christians add, the apostles brief
Gives account of Jesus Christ's grief.
This new addition to the Hebrew text
Saw a new Testament added next.

It had taken near three hundred years
Which has contributed too many fears.
This new born tract was not based on fact
But the words of a more recent pact.

Bible books added, enhances the brand
Others ignored, to sink beneath the sand.
Apostle's wrote continues appeals
Away from which integrity reels.

Christian martyrs sacrificial themes
Defeats the pagan ancestral dreams.
Disciples claims of heavenly messages sent
Confides with those of philosophic bent.

Christians multiplied with rapidity
Orthodoxy battles with heresy.
Theologians war, won by the orthodox
Secures to them the foundation rock.

Bede! 'The father of British history'
Wrote about ecclesiastical mystery
He described Roman Britain's geography
And denounced many a false monastery.

Thomas Aquinas, in Summa contra Gentiles,
Espoused natural reason, to all men's restyles.
John Wyclif advocated, no ownership in sin,
How can one own, property, if not genuine?

Aquinas! Thought there must be uncause cause
As there was an unmoved mover called;
God!  In "Summa Theologiae"
He argues such must be.

Philosophers wrote of ethics moral choices
Churchmen with more strident voices,
Spoke with celebrity on religions domain
Few with integrity voiced a scientific aim.

Dante travels to the devils own haunts
Just one epic of many such jaunts,
Bunyan's progress traced Christians deed,
To a place where the godly hope to speed.

Ockham! Spoke of  language of the mind
That universally humans aligns.
Signs! in each mind make mental propositions
As spoken signs make vocal oppositions.

Thomas More's elegance of English prose
He wrote with truth of Richard III foes.
Grains taken from More's  historic sand
Later to appear in Shakespearian hand.

“Utopia” or a country of Nowhere
Pertains to a republic most fair.
Chimaera, an anarchistic dream
More's own word, before never seen.

No law could enact, God should not be God
Nor King proclaim himself of higher sod.
Martyred for daring to chastise a King
His voice down the age, doth bear its sting.

First Editions from important historic choices
Lined these shelves tenders many voices.
From Leonardo Da Vinci, great works of art
Charles Darwin's, words on humanities start.

God given ethics, debated ceaselessly
by men of the church and of modernity.
Grammar, philology, rhetoric, enter stage.
Humanism founded, in renaissance age,

Renaissance a period now described
First used in Vasari's painters lives.
Art history's foundation based on this text
His life of Michelangelo gathers respect. 

Galileo's genius in mathematics
Drew condemnation from the clerics.
His astronomy met derision
From the primates inquisition.

He published a book, thought unsavoury
Starry Messenger proved his bravery.
Aristotle's astronomic affair
Proven in concept, no truth to bear.

Spinoza! Called atheist materialist
For daring to be a determinist.
He determined both God and nature
There be no separate curator.

He repudiated transcendent creator
Or morals founded on a divine maker.
Discounts Godly rewards or penalties
To preserve humanities individualities.

Spinoza! Attached individuality
With the multitudes reality.
He foresaw the power of church and state
As a single determinate fate.

Shakespeare donned a literary radiance
First Folio's, begins an English exuberance,
Wield the pen, with consummate fluency
Entwines words of beauteous consistency.

Milton promulgates publishers deliverance
From Church and States ambivalence.
Bibles, Prayer Books in aesthetic design,
Illuminated prints magnificent prime.

Political tracts used to besmirch monarchy,
Reduced the educated s, sweet idolatry.
New power of publicity, many sought to hide.
Caused! King to loose a throne,and regicide.

Travellers tales, adventures in new lands
Spreads gospel of life's potential grand.
Europe expands to every compass points,
Its books that tell, and heroes, they anoints.