Hermione

No school today.  Miss cannot teach us Greek;

No breath remains to show how we might speak

Or write, approaching her in skill and elegance.

New arts are needed now: can they enhance

That fine-boned beauty, linen-wrapped and masked in paint?

How many years your kohl eyes must have stared

Watching new generations play.  Then dared

A young voice call: ‘who’s that?’ and no-one knew.

You joined relations that they also threw

Into the asp-bored sand to rest for two millennia.

Haloed by Hawara sun you saw him lean

To read the writing, say that you had been

A teacher and must be exemplar for

The ‘women’s college’ where the third years saw

They had just funds enough to pay and brought you here.

Three X-rays and a CAT scan for an air-

Conditioned corpse.  A quality of care

That might have saved you all those years ago.

Conserved and published, now at last you know

We hold you treasure, evermore to teach.