\performance{drum} |
Am | Em | Am | Em | Am | |
Before the dawn of | history we | made | you knives of | stone, |
Dm | Am | Em | Am | |
Blades of fine obs | idian, with | hilts of polished | bone |
Am | Dm | Am | Em | Am | |
We gave you needles, | axes, | aye, with | flint we tipped your | spears |
Am | Dm | Am | Em | Am | Em | Am | |
Though all your bones be | dust, | our | tools have | lived | a million | years. |
Then flame brought metal from the stone and shining bronze was poured, |
We made the cup, the mirror, the helmet and the sword, |
And though the towers we builded then lie toppled o'er your bones, |
Our writing echoes still your words upon their scattered stones. |
Then forged was iron, cold and grey which armies rose to wield, |
They swept across the darkened years like locusts 'cross a field. |
Yet iron also tilled the land, and pitched the new-mown hay |
And some bright shards of lore we saved until a brighter day. |
New light burst forth upon the world, reborn was ancient lore, |
The tools we forged were finer then than any made before: |
New instruments to measure time, to map the sky and earth, |
And presses where we made the books in learning's great rebirth. |
Our tools tamed wind and water, then brought the age of steam |
The lightning does your bidding now, your midnight cities gleam. |
We've probed the depth of space, and seen where human eyes are blind, |
And built of sand and logic tools to aid the human mind. |
From broken flint to polished steel, from wood to atom's flame, |
The tools we make can build or break; to them it's all the same. |
Some curse us for the tools we make, but those who do are fools; |
What separates us from the beasts is how we use our tools. |
Stephen Savitzky
<steve @savitzky.net >
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