I’m paid without price, yet I’m costly indeed, In coin or in chorus, I answer the need. I’m offered in silence, in speeches, in song, To heroes, to rulers, to those who’ve been wronged. I rise in a toast or I bow in respect, In statues and stories I’m carefully kept.

Upon my skin are stories of old, My insides are all damp and cold, From the dawn of man's first fire, Shelter within has always transpired What am I?

In history, there was a time, when certain thoughts were heinous crimes. We now know the truth, that this is real, we're not the center, of the wheel

In Neolithic times these were often created as burial sites. Nowadays, a man with a cowhide sphere stands atop one while thousands watch him perform feats of strength, precision and baffling physics, and another man threatens him with a stick.

I guard what is grand, half beast, half man, buried in sand yet I stand. My nose met its fate, debated by hate, though time had its own heavy hand. I question all who pass my way, though silent in stone I stay.