The Amber Room Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

There is a palace treasure
that vanished years ago
a hall with fabled panels
of golden yellow glow

The walls were made of amber
and polished to high gleam
when czars and nobles entered
the world was charmed, it seemed

The chandeliers were glowing
bright crystal teardrop spheres
none of the guests expected
those drops would turn to tears

The royal lords were scattered
mowed down like winter hay
and golden rooms of glory
ransacked and hauled away

What happened to that treasure
they called the Amber Room
that fabulous illusion
that was so harshly doomed?

Some say it still lies hidden
in a most secret cave
and others claim a warlord
still hoards it like a slave

But when I think of amber
i still recall those words
of an old Roman writer
wise Tacitus by name

He said a tribe called Aestii
had harvested those rocks
found on a windswept coastline
on Baltic Sea shore's docks

It seems to me that dark sea
when ships rode on its breast
pulled them to its cold bottom
where now that amber rests

All precious stones men ravished
from mines and from the seas
belong to earth's own dowry
pristine till man them seized

The laws of nature always
stand firm in their decrees
will amber call to amber
and bring man to his knees?