I believe Dark days are upon us, my brethren.
Dark days that are soon to be realized.
I've heard the walls of the Library crackling,
As if just behind them, a fire is burning.
A fire hotter than a thousand suns.
My body will lay upon your books;
Hear me, brothers: the end of the Library is coming.
A burning greater than that of Alexandria.
Greater than that of Alexandria Eternal.
The end of the library will be like nothing before it.
A Great Searing which will tear through the Library.
The Library will burn.
I heard the Rounderpede chittering with another archivist.
"Yes, just the one," it said.
"The whole Library, just for one book?" Its companion replied.
"All of it."
They know what is to happen, they know the end is coming.
The Book will be found
I just hope that there will be a Library to turn to tomorrow.
And a new order will rise.
Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to give this one a downvote. For a piece of verse, this doesn't really have any interesting imagery. The only imagery you have is "A fire hotter than a thousand suns," which itself is fairly bland and inoffensive. Not to say that a free verse poem is only good if it has interesting imagery, but this doesn't have a narrative either. It doesn't have any themes besides 'impending doom,' and that theme is told explicitly to the reader multiple times. Instead of seeing the effects of this impending doom on the narrator, we just get told repeatedly that a vague 'something terrible is coming'. The majority of this poem consists of references to events, characters and things that have not been explored here at all (or even explained/given context to).
As an introduction to a larger story, this could maybe work, but as its own page, it doesn't have any substance. I think before you start building this 'Old Library' canon, you should definitely give this some more thought: come up with interesting questions about your story, explore themes and conflicts you can inject into the story to give it more emotional weight, think of a narrative arc that would make it feel like a story. Things like that.
I also think getting it another round of crit would have really helped you realise and address these problems before posting. Something to keep in mind.
As you stumble blindly through this corpse of a place,
Make sure not to notice the Watcher.
It won't harm you if you do,
But it might give you a scare.
The Watcher does what its name suggests.
What it watches for, I don't know
There's nothing of value left here anymore
Nothing worth being stolen.
There used to be.
Before the Searing.
Before this place became the corpse that it is.
But that was a long time ago
All that's left now is the Watcher,
A few pieces of literature,
things hiding in the shadows,
And the body of an Archivist.
Having figuratively torn both the Old and Wanderers' library apart for information, I believe to have uncovered a fragment of the truth about the Fourth Archivist and his crimes.
When asked about the Fourth Archivist, every single librarian will give the same response, "We do not discuss the Fourth Archivist. May his soul burn in Hell" before providing the sheet of paper with which we are all familiar.
The Curators. Three separate but interwoven beings, each representing an aspect of the shelving process. Some believe them to be the Library's consciousness made manifest, while others believe them to be former Head Archivists who were 'promoted' by the Library itself. Yet, as is common with mysterious and powerful beings, the true nature of the Curators is far more insidious. They rose to power in the aftermath of the Great Searing, at a time when the Serpent had gone quiet and his new creation, the Wanderers' Library, faced anarchy. This was a time when the Library did not speak and when the Serpent was silent, which means the Curator's rise to power was not incited by either of them.
When talking about the Library, the Wanderers' Library, and the Old Library, it is important to differentiate between them. The place you stand in now is the Old Library, a husk of what it once was, the Wonderers' Library. From your view, its name sounds rather cliché, but it was once a wonder of existence, far grander than the place from whence you came. The Wanderers' Library, which you're trust to be familiar with, was created by the Serpent after the Great Searing. The primary intention was to restore the Old Library and while the damage done to it could be restored, it was too painful to remember for the Serpent to fix. The Library is a conscious being, the spirit if you will, of the concept of the Wonderers' Library. The nature of the relationship between it and the Serpent is unclear but connected.
As previously stated, the three Curators represent the shelving process: The Explorer, The Scribe, and The Librarian. In layman's terms, The Explorer experiences the literature, The Scribe writes down the experience, and The Librarian shelves it within the Wanderers' Library. The specifics are far more complex
