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.
__________
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman.
Typically, I think Walt Whitman comes off as perhaps the most over-rated, self-mythologizing, self-indulgent voice in modern American poetry. Only Allen Ginsberg seems to be so in love with mirrors and the pronoun I. But this short verse has some energy and subtle muscle to it.
I thought of this poem as I left the library, ten minutes ago, to wander home across the dark and drizzly Georgetown campus. There’s nothing quite like finishing your final assignment of the semester at 5:40 in the morning.
The beautiful Baroque spires of Georgetown’s Healy Hall.
Whoa, John, this poem is one of my all-time favorites. Haven’t you ever had an aesthetic hunger so deep nothing feeds it but the thing itself–no description, no measurements, no analysis? And mirrors–where do you get mirrors?
Well said, Jessica! I also love this poem.
So true and very said. Glad you liked the poem.
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This is a gorgeous poem. And to think of the year it was written and what surrounded Whitman as he listened to a scholarly (pre-instant breakfast in the space shuttle blasting out aluminum particles upon reentry) presentation of evidence concerning the heavens.
I give Whitman a pass in the self-absorbtion department since so much of his reflection is connected to ‘otherness’ and ‘wonderous-ness.’ He must have been as lonely as Van Gogh.
I enjoyed your contextualizing of this poem & being under the sky early, very early, in the morning.
Thanks for the words, and I’m glad you got something out of it. Yeah, the poem strikes me when I work late at night or early into the morning (the only times I seem to actually get things done), as it’s a reminder that learning and labor are not really the ends of life, but rather the means — means of attaining some higher understanding and place within the world. Well, that’s how I look at it anyway.
And yes, I’d agree; Whitman was probably a very lonely man. Like Van Gogh though, this loneliness was probably largely self-imposed. Artists — specifically writers and painters — have to work alone, and when you’re as eccentric as Whitman and Van Gogh, there’s little hope of actually maintaining much significant contact with people.
Also, I like your pointing out how Whitman’s reflections on self are actually outward looking, in a way. I’d agree with that to a degree — and this deserves a longer discussion — but even if I were to concede that point, I still am not much for his stuff, purely on the basis of how much it just doesn’t square up stylistically with my more formal, traditional tastes in poetry.
Again, thanks for the words and for following the blog…
I’d not heard of this poem, generally avoiding Whitman like the plague. You’re right about the energy and subtle muscle. A poem can’t be a bowl of soup, however tasty.
I’d agree. Not a huge fan of Whitman myself (though I sort of see the appeal, especially to those who see in him the emergence of modernism). “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” is so great though because, like you say, it’s more subtle than Whitman’s other stuff, specifically Leaves of Grass. Typically, it would seem that Whitman would move from several lines about an astronomer and the stars to a long-winded, ranging celebration of himself. That sort of thing is what ruins Whitman to me: he’s not just self-centered, he’s self-obsessed.
For a (mostly) lighter touch, you might check out my brother Ted’s latest poems on his “blug,” Spinning on a Fretful Midge (or is it Fretting on a Spinach Binge?) at http://tedrey.wordpress.com/poems-2013/
(Didn’t know where to send this so you’d see it, since I don’t think you’ve posted your email address.)
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