The Mathematician

Stranger alike to traffic's clamor crude
And to joy's throbbing, intricate design,
He stands serene. A formula, a line,
With changeless beauty is by him endued.
Striver for truth's perfection, no light mood
May move him. Differential, axiom, sign,
Bring to him glimpses of the far divine,
Marking the boundaries of finitude.

By Euclid's theorems cramped, he seeks new spheres,
And walks in high, far ways forever free,
Toils with awed vision through the ordered years,
Till, from the all-but-handled harmony,
In some grave problem Deity appears,
And in a graph he finds Eternity.

^__Nelson Antrim Crawford.

Contemporary Kansas Poetry
Helen Rhoda Hoopes
Page 36
(Kansas City: Joseph D. Havens Company. 1927)