Sages of old knew secrets, secrets of virtue,
virtuous secrets of what to do, how to live;
abstract virtues for all time, all peoples
What did not itself conceal, the masters revealed:
Be of constant courage; stand for justice and mercy;
seek wisdom; and make the moderate your habit
The final secret, the main virtue stayed veiled
by the vagaries of thought and language and
we people lingered long in shadows of dogma
Sated by hollow thoughts and shallow sentiments
we people lavished words on the void and required
a return of gold on the risk we ran and ran from
We people trifled with solitary crumbs of sense,
made of noble truths, nonsense, and played the fools
at how to live, how to live with self
To live well and with self, we notice bare facts
that wake us to the sheer bliss of being awake,
and we make metaphors to mantle what stays mute
