When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer...

[fajrdrako]

By Walt Whitman (American, 1819–1892):

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.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Walt Whitman was on the cover of a magazine that I sorted at work earlier tonight...

How very cool!

A drawing of him sitting on the grass leaning against a tree, barefoot, with an open box of Whitman Sampler sitting next to him, which was cute.

How adorable!

"bare feet for walking through the leaves of grass!"

I love it.

I wish I'd been able to photocopy that cover.

I found it. This one, right?



I love Google.

He's a fringe-dweller who thinks that there should be no "mainstream,

No quaint categories.

if only all of us would wake up to our amazing uniqueness.

A good lesson.

What a mind, what a consciousness.

And what a way with words.