It had to start with A
for a prime mover
and great expectations.

Slowly and laboriously
built in many labs
it grew
almost as if it were
a biological organism,
needing nursing,
tender loving care,
and long nights of vigils,
in underground haunted halls,
where sometimes bagpipes
resounded weirdly,
and magnetic fields
 played havoc with displays.

A grand masterpiece
a Stradivarius of detectors,
it played the tunes in bytes and bits,
morphing to lovely images,
obsessed by the search
for the melody of melodies
that in the end
tantalized us all.

Caretakers and scholars,
we observed
the perfect manifestation
of nature in microcosm,
lured continually onwards
by hopes and glimpses
of the newest ever theories.

Now the song is sung
and the last chords
die out,
 ALEPH just a memory
but recorded well.