This fire burns black onyx and cold And shadow is its children A plain for mirrored glass A lone figure, a sky of white A tear in the dimness And only darkness beyond This crooked path turns westwards Adorned with a sphere of flaming stone From the naked soil a discipline brought Forth, thus to be learned This discipline is the old and obsolete From the lands of glass The alchemist abides the first The post-modern Prometheus is born This is truly the shadow child The discipline of the old