Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Some of the Magic of THREE

The Universe in Verse -- an Earth-Day celebration of Science and Poetry
A NYC event on April 23 -- learn more here!

     In her brain-pickings website, Maria Popova offers myriad links between science and poetry -- and one of the poems she has, to my delight, reminded me of is "Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).  Here is the first stanza:

 from    Renascence   by Edna St. Vincent Millay

          All I could see from where I stood
          Was three long mountains and a wood;
          I turned and looked another way,
          And saw three islands in a bay.
          So with my eyes I traced the line
          Of the horizon, thin and fine,
          Straight around till I was come
          Back to where I’d started from;
          And all I saw from where I stood
          Was three long mountains and a wood.
              . . .

Millay goes on to speak of flat and wide, of spheres and Infinity . . .. a story related to the poems is available here and the entire poem is found here at PoetryFoundation.org.

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