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Show WILBUR p. nesbit ' Up from tile south at break of day. Hot fiom tile book of ulpebra Catne a mufllod grumble and rumble anc roar That told that the battle was on once more With an x phis y and an a plus b And the mislity ships plunged about the sea While (he captain figured, and paused to miv: "The answer is twenty miles away." He tangled the sines, cosines and ares, And deeimal-pointed the distant marks: He charted his work with a somber rhythm And jettisoned sum and logarithm; The numbers Hashed and the numbers banged. And tne quotients grim on Hie hateh- ways clanged. While the captain glanced at the skie? all gray-The gray-The answer was fifteen miles away. He whittled his pencil and trod anew; He grappled with 4 and 5 and 1 And bravely he strove to the bitter end 'With a plain cube root and a subtrahend; subtra-hend; A radical sign and a minus mark And a plus or two ere the day grew dark He hurled aloft as a man at play The answer was just ten miles away. And now with a shudder the brave ship reeled While over the sea the wild sums pealed; There were figures galore from stern to stem And a trembling binomial theorem. While the mutter and murmur and elaek and cliek 1 Told dumbly of angry arithmetic , As the lleet came breasting the biting spray With the answer a scant five miles away. Hurrah, hurrah for man and book And the well-filled pad in the captain's nook ! For tile wailing wind on the rolling brine Caught vainly at last at the radical sign And the cube root came to the base at last And the old flag flew at the highest mast And the captain won with a valiant air With an x plus y and a z to spare. |