Today, in continued honor of National Poetry Month, I share with you Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.”  It’s long been a favorite of mine.  Enjoy.

“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,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.