When I Heard the
Learn’d Astronomer
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d
astronomer,
When the proofs, the
figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the
charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the
astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I
became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding
out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist
night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars
