When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman(1819–1892)

Leaves of Grass, 1865

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.

From Leaves of Grass (1882), via the English Wikisource transcription.

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