Poem: "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,

Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.