When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
By 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 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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Read the poem and answer the following questions:
1- What experience does the poem describe?
2- Analyze Whitman’s use of parallelism.
3- How does Whitman’s language describing the domain of science in lines 1-4 contrast with his language in lines 5-8? How does the contrast express a theme in the poem?
4- The speaker notes that the astronomer’s lecture is greeted “with much applause in the lecture-room.” What tone, or attitude, does the speaker have toward the other people in the room?
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