When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

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 the 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.

- Walt Whitman

One of the poems that we went over today in my Modern Poetry class. Today’s lecture was about Transcendentalism and Walt Whitman, since he one of the first poets the beginning of what is considered “Modern Poetry.” Read it out loud and read slowly. It’s amazing how much a poet can say with eight simple lines. :]

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  1. algorithmgirl posted this