Books of antiquity

Fingerprints cling to the pages,
marked upon each one,
within a book of unknown ages,
dates of past and gone.

The covers falls to pieces,
some of leather some of cloth,
an ancient sent releases
all the memories come forth.

I turn the yellow wrinkled sheets
and read forgotten tales,
of war and battles, ships and fleets
that in the past still sails.

A candle light that flickers dim,
A feather pen, a page,
A hand that wrote these words within
a book now torn by age.

14 June of 1801,
I read into that day,
of dates and names now all long gone,
whose fingerprints here lay.