Here’s looking at Euclid

(Recently discovered verses of Emily Dickinson, apparently penned upon posthumously reading the first two definitions from T.L. Heath’s translation of Euclid’s Elements.)

A point is that which has no part,
a line is breadthless length;
and those who read in Euclid’s book
shall go from strength to strength.

Because I could not stop for Heath
he kindly stopped for me;
the carriage held but just ourselves
and Plane Geometry.

I never saw a radius
or two or four or three,
Yet I know how the circle looks,
and what a line must be.

Lines are the things with measures
that perch upon a plane,
and have the length–without the width
and never meet again.

I never drew diameters
nor bisected a line,
yet certain am I of their place
as if the proofs were mine.