Addiction

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I confess to being a life long addict where A A Milne is concerned. I had thought to regale you again with his delightful poem entitled Sneezles, for the last line says 'Now, how to amuse them today?' You can see how this may be especially apt in my case.

But when I flicked through my book of his poetry to make sure I was remembering it correctly, I happened across a poem I'd swear I've never seen before - and that's in sixty plus years of addiction. I have no logical explanation as to how this may have happened - unless it was magically inserted on page 121 just for today. It's entitled The Alchemist, appropriately enough, Here it is:-

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 a tortoiseshell cat,
and he asks about this and explains about that,
and at night he puts on a big wide-awake* hat
...and sits in the writing room, writing.
........................................................................* So as not to go to sleep.

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 somehow 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 on it, night after night
...till he knows he can do it for certain.

This struck me as SO like Blogland writers, that I simply had to make a song and dance about it. I do believe many of them have their own wide-awake hats; but unlike the Alchemist, they very often successfully conjure gold with the words they write for us. Long may their spells continue.
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