1966

Your poem is based upon a false notion, said Pliny the Elder.

How's that? I asked.

Our Roman architects were not ambivalent in matters of direction.

I know, I said, but it just struck me as funny that was all. All your famous structures make use of arches and domes, and they look the same whichever way you look at them.

They do not, said Pliny severely. You are forgetting about up and down. It was a good decision you made in 1963. You were clearly not suited to the study of vectors.

Actually, I have a confession to make Pliny. It wasn't 1963, it was 1966. But nothing rhymes with 1966.

Fiddlesticks, said Pliny.

Poem -----> Pliny

The buildings built in ancient Rome,
The arch, basilica and dome,
Stood up because
The feeling was
That an erector
Stumped by a vector
Would do no worse
If he built in reverse.

This worked for aqueducts and arches,
And roads for long imperial marches.

But it didn't work for me
Back in nineteen sixty three.
That's why I switched to Chemistry.