Sentence:  [Poetry] transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret <WSD>alchemy</WSD> turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The causing of any sort of mysterious sudden transmutation.