Before I knew my soul I knew my father's voice, The sacrosanct control Of every final choice And first. The morning bird Sang right or wrong for me By what my father heard. Through his blue eyes I'd see The mare and judge her gait. Somehow from him there grew My mordant soul—with hate And fear enough for two.
The speaker looks back on a childhood dominated by his father, whose voice came before any sense of self. Even the smallest things, like whether a morning bird's song sounded right or wrong, depended on what the father heard. The speaker didn't just obey him; he borrowed his eyes. He judged a mare's gait through his father's blue ones, so his very way of seeing was handed down rather than his own.
The title's "alchemy" hints at a transformation, and the last lines reveal what came out of it: a "mordant" soul, meaning biting and bitter, full of "hate and fear enough for two." That last phrase is chilling. It suggests the speaker carries his father's emotions as well as his own, doubled. The mood is controlled and cold, almost like a confession. The language is formal ("sacrosanct"), which makes the father's authority feel absolute, and the poem's quiet tone makes its resentment hit harder.