When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman (Crossroads, p. 316)

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 was sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much

Applause I the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

 

—

 

On When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman

Human nature and more accurately, the empirical nature of modern western man believes that a full factual, literal or journalistic understanding of the mechanics of a thing, person or phenomenon will render in fullness the exact likeness of that said thing, person or phenomenon. But in the poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” Whitman argues a much more ancient case. That truth that is symbolic or sacramental holds just as much legitimacy if not more than its empirical sibling. That is, no matter how exhausting the scientific examination of a human experience, the resulting explanation will never be able to capture its essence, mystery and majesty of that experience of life. That the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Or to use another dead metaphor, it is missing the forest for the trees.

So in many cases a dogged adherence to empiricism can turn us into “truth” sniffing bloodhounds with our heads to the ground, missing the experience of our other and extra senses. Whitman references this specifically in the final “stanza” when he states, “How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, / In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.” Whitman realizes that for all the astronomer’s empirical brilliance, he couldn’t explain why the night sky touches a person in such a deep majestic way. This knowledge was of a deeper initiation. The initiation of a poet.

In regards to punctuation he uses commas at the end of almost every line which adds dramatic emphasis to his statements.

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