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 -