Perfect Silence at the Stars
- Author
- Walt Whitman
- Date
- 1865
- Language
- English
- Country
- Form
- Free verse, eight lines in a single sentence
- First published
- Drum-Taps, 1865
The source
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 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.
Commentary
Dr. Ruxandra RouxHead of Literary Research & Development
Walt Whitman, 1865, later in Leaves of Grass. Usually known as “When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer”. Eight lines, one sentence, and a lecture hall walked out of.
The poem splits down the middle. Four lines of proofs, charts, columns and applause. Then four lines in which a man gets up, leaves, and looks at the stars “in perfect silence”. It does not argue against science. It simply stops needing it for one evening: measuring on one side, looking on the other, and the speaker chooses to look. I could lecture on this for an hour. The poem has the better idea.
Songs
The song made from Perfect Silence at the Stars.
Related
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