Song of the Immortals

  We are nothing new.
  We have been among you
  since the first of your kind,
  not yet your kind,
  asked more of the night sky
  than its directions.
  We are the trees which,
  falling unheard in the forest,
  make a different kind
  of singing.

  Do not look to us for secrets;
  it is you, not we,
  who hunger after knowledge.

  We are nothing mysterious.
  You have seen us, and
  not seen us, men of your kind,
  whose guarded eyes regard
  coolly, from ancient marble,
  all those who would tell us
  what we mean. 
  
  Do not look to us for power:
  it is you, not we,
  who weaves the dream of mastery.

  We are nothing wonderful.
  We are those, without haloes or
  visible magicks, whom you
  have pushed aside in your chase
  after enlightenment.    We are
  the unseen, who listen, and give,
  and yield nothing which might
  discover us.

  Do not look to us for salvation:
  it is you, not we,
  who importunes the oracle.