Perspective

O speck of dust about a dying light;
Thus ever falling with unresting pace;
Without a purpose or a goal in sight:
This sphere so moves on through a lifeless space
Of all the dust in this vast universe
This speck alone, bestowed with aging life,
Through [sic], can record with ageless verse
Untiring times eroding; Mankind’s strife.
Minute to Nature; a whole world to man,
This insignificant conceited spot,
Where Nature once her miracles began,
Now boasts a race with glory none can blot.
Thus life alone to specks can so endow
A purpose and a goal to dust so foul.
                           

            The Alchemist

A wander from a far-off land
Came to the castle gate,
And begged for shelter for the night,
As it was growing late.

Into the presence of the lord
The stranger he was led;
Dressed in robes of the darkest black,
Resembling well the dead.

“Where is your home, what is your trade?”
The lord inquired he.
A worker of mysterious acts
The stranger claimed to be.

“What are the powers which you claim?”
The lord again asked he.
“I change base metals into gold;
I practice alchemy.”

“What is your price for doing this?”
The lord he further pressed,
“What do you want of mine?” he said.
“Ill give you what you request.”

“To you my secret I’ll reveal,
And only this I ask:
Three horses and seven servants;
And I will do the task.”

To this request agreed the lord;
And into the huge hall,
The lord had brought a caldron large.
He stood and watched in awe.

The alchemist drew from his robes
Some thirteen leather sacks;
And having showed them to the lord;
He opened up the packs.

Their contents, they were quickly poured
Into the large black pot.
And clouds of vapor floated out,
The fire it grew so hot.

‘Mid the red clouds the stranger stood,
Tending his fiery brew;
And finally from the caldron’s depths
A golden lump he drew.

The lord cried out so merrily,
And then the gold he eyed:
He stabbed the stranger in the back,
And gloated while he died.

“This secret none but me now knows,
None on the earth’s vast face.”
But then the gold, it slowly changed.
And brimstone took its place.