The learn'd astronomer

Last evening Bro. Clarence gave a talk, or I should say a lecture on astronomy, and as he said, to prepare us for the upcoming observations with his new telescope. He even wheeled out the chalkboard and began drawing lines and arcs and numbers followed by countless zeros, he talked of Hubble and bubbles and a cosmos liken to the suds in a bubble bath, and on and on it went. I found it fascinating, but noted that Bro. Juniper was nodding off, so it is my guess that he is the one that push-pinned the following to the dining room bulletin board early this morning, and I must add, a fair rebuttal to talk of countless zeros.

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.

--Walt Whitman