" What are you hunting out there alone? "
" I'm hunting, Ellen, the Tangent Stone. "
" O, what a trouble, Ollie, you take —
I thought you were going to kill a snake. "

" I have found it, Ellen; I thought it flown;
'Tis in the same place, the Tangent Stone.
Sit here with me where the two stones clink;
You keep right still while I try to think. "

" O, I would rather be called your own
Than have you study the Tangent Stone;
'Tis only a landmark old as the pine
They have surveyed on the Boundary Line. "

" Yes, Ellen, the circle here cuts the square,
But squaring the circle was long a care;
Come meet me here at the mystic zone
Where the Compass kissed on the Tangent Stone! "

And there oft Ellen found Ollie alone,
Trying to fathom the Tangent Stone.
The college boys they called him daft,
But Ellen at Ollie she never laughed.

In mathematics his mind was grown,
Worshipping arcs at the Tangent Stone,
Till in the Heaven he came to be
A priest of the spheres' geometry.

The stars to him in the millions sown
Reached kindly light at the Tangent Stone;
" Lead, Kindly Light! Let me understand! "
He held to the earth by Ellen's hand.

His fame went round where the Planet men
Roved in the night through the starry fen,
With Copernik, Galileo known,
He compassed their lore from the Tangent Stone.

" O, I am forgot in your learned tryst!
So wide your circle, can I be kissed? "
" Love is the radius, Ellen, my own!
Our lives touch God, like the Tangent Stone. "