Historian: A broad-gauge gossip. - Ambrose Bierce

Wow. Ok. This one has to be a sonnet. Check out details here. We'll start with an English sonnet.

Ode to History

Oh, history, you are to me a blight.
I've anguished many hours to learn your lore.
For teachers would not let me leave despite
My stomach's churning from your dreadful bore.
Oh, history, I've come to know you well.
You follow me with lessons long and dull.
And sometimes hidden in your sleepy hell
I nod and doze when I'm supposed to mull
Oh, history, I fell that I might die.
If I do not escape your heavy text.
So hatefully do I endure and sigh
While waiting for the bell to bring sweet next.
But if I learn not from your storied vaults
Then doomed am I to oft repeat your faults.
JLN2008