Chymistry

Chymistry

The alchemists assigned the ancient metals
To a planet each:
The Sun is gold, and brightsilver the Moon,
They used to teach.
While quicksilver is Mercury,
And Venus has a copper heart.
And Mars is cast in iron, clearly,
In their philosophic art.
Old Jupiter is made of tin,
And Saturn is a lump of lead –
(Or bendledd, as they really should have
Called the stuff instead.)
And that was the edge of their knowledge,
And Uranus came too late –
But what might they have named his element,
To match his fate ?
I think redledd – bismuth,
Though they did get them confused –
And Neptune can be brimstone,
Since that still has not been used.
But what of the others ?  Like the Earth ?
I guess that must be carbon coal.
And plainsight-hidden Ceres is our makebrass zinc –
That fits her role.
And banestone Pluto gets to stand
For ars’nic, dark and glimmer-free,
Till dim and distant Eris is our stibblack,
For antimony.
Of course, we really did get chemicals
That have all grown with them –
That’s how we got uranium,
Neptunium, plutonium,
(And much-forgotten cerium)
And all the secrets each unlocks.
One wonders what the alchemists
Would make of such explosive rocks…?

Note that antimony has its stress on the second syllable (as it should be…)

And of course, these days we’ve actually found the philosopher’s stone that can turn other metals into gold – only these days we call it a supernova instead.