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Plain Geometry

Emma Rounds

'Twas Euclid and the theorem pi
Did plane and solid in the text,
All parallel were the radii,
And the ang-gulls convex'd.

"Beware the Wentworth-Smith, my son,
And the Loci that vacillate;
Beware the Axiom, and shun
The faithless Postulate."

He took his Waterman in hand;
Long time the proper proof he sought;
Then rested he by the XYZ
And sat awhile in thought.

And as in inverse thought he sat
A brilliant proof, in lines of flame,
All neat and trim, it came to him.
Tangenting as it came.

"AB, CD," reflected he--
The Waterman went snicker-snack--
He Q. E. D.-d, and, proud indeed,
He trapezoided back.

"And hast thou proved the 29th?
Come to my arms, my radius boy!
Oh good for you! O one point two!"
He rhombused in his joy.

'Twas Euclid and the theorem pi
Did plane and solid in the text,
All parallel were the radii,
And the ang-gulls convex'd.


Rounds, Emma, "Plain Geometry". In Creative Youth, Hughes Mearns, © 1925 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York.

Also in

Fadiman, Clifton (ed.), Fantasia Mathematica, © 1958 Simon & Schuster, Inc. Published in 1997 by Copernicus, an imprint of Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. ISBN 0-387-94931-3.


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