Pythagoras Alone

Pythagoras sits tuning his seven-stringed lyre,-

The little boy who climbed the forested mountains of Samos,

The merchant seaman’s son born from the waves,

The wanderer who surveyed the stars from Egyptian temple roofs-

And arranges pebbles into triangles and squares on the ground

As the sun tracks across the sky.

Now he knows the object of science is joy;

He is building his pyramid of life and death

To ascend beyond calculation and feeling.