When the blue shimmer of the damsel-fly

shines through the smoke of villages,

A Thing appears, some new conception,

and shipwrecks intellect on Number’s shore.

“Children, children!” the priest exclaimed,

when he heard the Athenian envoy speak.

About the austere neck of Number

mind and matter hang like a cloak.

When mortal minds tire pondering

some equation—wine-dark, foam-born—

their goal, remember, is to tower

until they touch the sky.

Replace the stake, the block, the cross!

Think of Number as an iron device.

Even the whirlwind slackens,

confronting Number face to face.

I write these lines in ink: Believe me,

the day is near that glorifies us all!

And the rough beast slouches in silence,

a pair of virgin ciphers in his paw!

But when he hears the tender tumult

of these voices and these days,

he will fall down as if struck

upon the rocks, upon the rocks.