Transmutation

Once, alchemists dreamed of endless gold,

'Til they died from blade or age.

Their ambitions became a tale of old,

On which history turned the page.

In due course, earth and sky united

By towers of steel and glass

And stranger names we gave to hybrids

That by our hands came to pass.

What, in the end, is an alloy but

The changing of an essence?

Is the search long done, or is it yet

Hidden in our new science?

Heed now the view from vantage high,

The strangeness of the ways:

There are ideas which never do die,

But merely await better days.