Euclid Was Also Known As The Pythagorean Executive Secretary

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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.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY 

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Footnotes

The title is a quote from Frances Steerling

given during his address to an international

conference of Geometry teachers

Pythagoras refused to allow
any of his theories to be written
on paper but Euclid, born two hundred years
after Pythagoras, did so
and then some  

The title quote was his introduction

to the recital of Ms. Millay's poem

The quote got the louder laugh

but the poem got a standing ovation.

The image is from Newport, Oregon
and is the copyrighted property of LCSoL

The next Frances Steerling page is  here

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