Poems

I have been reading over this poem for a couple of weeks and it still yeilds suprises everytime I go over it. Such technical language at the begining and then flows into more imaginative fluid language near the end. The lists at the begining are constricting and robotic, whereas the end is fluid and full of alliteration.


When I Heard the Learned 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.