The Astrologers

We served them since we saw the stars descend
And rule as gods upon the gloomy earth.
We learnt their iron courses and their laws,
To glimpse beyond the daylong night the ends
of dying men, and multiply our our mirth
— less powers in the joyless world of men.

All is old, and all that was will be again.
And when you’ve learned this,
then you’ve lost your youth.
The spirits of the air confirm the same:
knowledge is but death, and bitter is the truth.

Or so we thought, until we saw arise
A new thing, new light, turned against the rest.
Up it went in pilgrimage — to attend
Upon a better light not from the skies.
It stopped above the hovel, there kept watch
Till we entered, and our very selves did bend
before the child-sun, hidden in the west.

We laid our gifts, and to the babe we prayed,
And lightened, eastward went, a better way.