Elementa Chemicae, Leiden, 1719

by those paths
in which we all know with secret intimacy,
I became sullied
(like we all do),
covered in dirty Gold and Antimony.
I was being mauled by my own wolf,
swallowed by the basest me.
but, by tertiary eye
I managed to find
means to shed the terrestrial
mire and mind pollutants
clinging to me like a million bucks:

baptize me in the Azoth bath--

streams of philosophical quicksilver
pouring off my skin as I rise out of
the depths. The sulphurous particles
(Latona) scrub and scrape away,
leaving a void slate for the dove,
the Mercurial spirit, to do its work:

refining, refining, refining a soul.

the sparkling Lapis.