I was pulling materials together this afternoon for the upcoming school year, when I came upon my old college Norton Poetry Anthology. As I held the heavy tome, I remembered the joy I felt as I came across new to me poems in Mary Klayder's English 210 class. I flipped through, lighting on this particular one. I thought my kiddo would understand.
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
By Walt Whitman, 1865
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.
I think that says it all, don't you?
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