A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.
He measured with care, from the ends of a base,
The arcs which her features subtended:
Then he framed transcendental equations, to trace
The flowing outlines of her figure and face,
And thought the result very splendid.
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He studied (since music has charms for the fair)
The theory of fiddles and whistles,-
Then composed, by acoustic equations, an air,
Which, when 鈥檛was performed, made the lady鈥檚 long hair
Stand on end, like a porcupine鈥檚 bristles.
The lady loved dancing:-he therefore applied,
To the polka and waltz, an equation;
But when to rotate on his axis he tried,
His centre of gravity swayed to one side,
And he fell, by the earth鈥檚 gravitation.
No doubts of the fate of his suit made him pause,
For he proved, to his own satisfaction,
That the fair one returned his affection;-鈥渂ecause,
鈥淎s every one knows, by mechanical laws,
鈥淩e-action is equal to action.鈥
鈥淟et x denote beauty,-y, manners well-bred,-
鈥渮, Fortune,-(this last is essential),-
鈥淟et L stand for love鈥-our philosopher said,-
鈥淭hen L is a function of x, y, and z,
鈥淥f the kind which is known as potential.鈥
鈥淣ow integrate L with respect to d t,
鈥(t Standing for time and persuasion);
鈥淭hen, between proper limits, 鈥檛is easy to see,
鈥淭he definite integral Marriage must be:-
鈥(A very concise demonstration).鈥
Said he-鈥淚f the wandering course of the moon
鈥淏y Algebra can be predicted,
鈥淭he female affections must yield to it soon鈥-
-But the lady ran off with a dashing dragoon,
And left him amazed and afflicted.
Read more: 鈥Victorian scientists鈥 poetry: An anthology鈥