When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer   --  Walt Whitman
  

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
 
When the proofs, the figures, were arranged 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.