It can be strange to think sometimes of the humanities and sciences meeting. A poetic stanza has very little to do with a mathematical equation one would think; not Edna St. Vincent Millay. In this poem, “Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare”, the Father of Geometry can see what poets, those so attuned to pointing out the beauty of the world, cannot. Here is the text:
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.
