77 When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

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 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.

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman was published in Leaves of Grass. It is in the public domain and was accessed from Project Gutenberg at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1322/1322-h/1322-h.htm#link2H_4_0002