Milne's Alchemist

         Time for another fantasy poem (not by me), so here’s a charming one by A.A. Milne.

        The Alchemist

There lives an old man at the top of the street

And the end of his beard reaches down to his feet,

And he’s just the one person I’m longing to meet,

        I think that he sounds so exciting;

For he talks all the day to his tortoiseshell cat,

And he asks about this, and explains about that,

And at night he puts on a big wide-awake¹ hat

        And sits in the writing-room, writing.

He has worked all his life (and he’s terribly old)

At a wonderful spell which says, “Lo, and behold!

Your nursery fender is gold!”—and it’s gold!

        (Or the tongs, or the rod for the curtain);

But some how he hasn’t got hold of it quite,

Or the liquid you pour on it first isn’t right,

So that’s why he works at it night after night

        Till he knows he can do it for certain.

¹ So as not to go to sleep.

        This poem is from When We Were Very Young, 1924.  Since this book is for young children, the poems are all quite gentle and whimsical.  I’ve shared more fantasy poetry of a different sort by Milne here: Bo, Boll, Bill, Bole.  (Still whimsical, but much more satirical.)  And if you want to learn more about the Alchemist’s work and why it’s so difficult and taking him such a long time, you can read about The Philosopher’s Stone.

[Picture: The Alchemist, illustration by Ernest H. Shepard from When We were Very Young by A.A. Milne, 1924.]