Ad Eigilum de libro quem scripserat

Nullum opus exsurgit quod non annosa vestustas
expugnet, quod non vertat iniqua dies.
grammata sola carent fato, mortemque repellunt,
preteria renovant grammata sola biblis
grammata nempe dei digitus sulcabat in apta
rupe, suo legem cum dederat populo,
sunt, fuerant, mundo venient quae forte futura,
grammata haec monstrant famine cuncta suo.

No work of men's hands but the weary years
Besiege and take it, comes its evil day:
The written word alone flouts destiny,
Retrieves the past and gives the lie to Death.
God's finger made its furrows in the rock
In letter, when He gave His folk the law.
And things that are, and have been, and may be,
Their secret with the written word abides.

Hrbanus Maurus (776-856) was successively a disciple of Alcuin, abbot of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz. He was a omnivorous reader and a voluminous writer, who famously said of his administrative duties at Fulda Abbey "seeing that these young ones have enough to eat is a great hindrance to one's reading." The verse above is taken from Mediaeval Latin Lyrics edited by Helen Waddell and published by Constable & Co.