Friday, June 26, 2009

91: My Favorite Poem

I guess this is kind of cheating but I believe I've posted this poem before. Oh, well. I figure it's so good that it's worth repeating. :-) The truth of it has stuck with me ever since I first read it in high school.

As the subject in the poem comes to find out, the intellect of some things will never compare to actually experiencing them . . .

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
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 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.

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