The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Babylonia and is among the earliest known literary works. A series of Sumerian legends and poems about the mythological hero-king Gilgamesh, thought to be a ruler of the 3rd millennium BC, were gathered into a longer Akkadian poem long afterward, with the most complete version extant today preserved on twelve clay tablets in the library collection of the 7th century BC Assyrian king Assurbanipal.

Gilgamesh

• Who is there, my friend, can climb to the sky?
  Only the gods dwell forever in sunlight.
  As for man, his days are numbered,
  whatever he may do, it is but wind.
  • Gilgamesh to Enkidu

The skies roared with thunder and the earth heaved,
Then came darkness and a stillness like death.
Lightening smashed the ground and fires blazed out;
Death flooded from the skies.
When the heat died and the fires went out,
The plains had turned to ash.

A dream of Gilgamesh, Tablet 4