"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."
I don't ordinarily enjoy Whitman, and I'm still not exactly sure how to take this one--or how far I can extend its ostensible meaning. Is Whitman bemoaning an intellectualized approach to astronomy, or to the study of nature in general? Can I take this message to the door of Theology?--to intellectualism in general? Nevertheless, something lingers in this poem which I am sure the Transcendentalists would have eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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