A lanthanoid metal,
the first discovered from all.
By Berzelius and Hisinger,
in the same year as Klaproth to be fair.

Named after Ceres, a roman goddess,
Cerium has a silvery dress.
Mosander could successfully isolate it,
with Tungsten of Bastnäs he failed a bit.

The ore now is known as cerite,
which fits nice and quite.
Due to its oxygen affinity,
Cerium is hardly used as metal seriously,

Carl Auer von Welsbach found application,
and was leading at Cerium oxide industrialization.
It started with gas mantles for street light,
green, than blue and with Cerium white.

Together as a mix with other lanthanoides,
as mischmetall in flint lighters it succeeds.
It is nowadays prefered in tungsten welding rod,
as compared to thorium, health problems are given not,

So Cerium is a colour thief,
and for sparks and electrons a chief,
if combined with sulfur,
it brings colours stable and pure,

Next to the major applications,
it is used in many special occasions,
An important helper, mostly unseen,
it makes our world bright, colourful and clean.

I wish to dedicate this poem to the great Austrian chemist and brilliant mind Carl Auer von Welsbach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Auer_von_Welsbach