Wlat Whitman

This poem concerns different ways of knowing: being convinced rationally about something by hearing from the experts as opposed to experiencing it directly, intimately, and intuitively for yourself.

The setting for the first five lines is a lecture hall (H 403, perhaps). The speaker of the poem is listening to a "learn'd astronomer" as he lectures, presumably about astronomy (James E. Miller, Jr., ed., Complete Poetry and Selected Prose by Walt Whitman [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959, p. 196]). The lecture seems rather dry and abstract, though. It focuses on scientific facts and figures all neatly arranged to appeal to human logic and reason. The lecturer offers "proofs," "figures," "charts and diagrams" for his hearers, who are expected to test the data and hypotheses – "to add, divide, and measure them." The lecture is apparently successful because the audience responds "with much applause."

The speaker of the poem, however, responds differently. The poem shifts in the fifth line when he gives his own reaction: for some reason he grows "tired and sick" and must leave the lecture hall. He recovers when he gets outside by himself, where he occasionally looks up at the stars. He does not indicate precisely what has happened (calling the whole incident "unaccountable"), but the implications seem clear. Put off by the rational, scientific approach to the stars, he is restored when he experiences them directly for himself. The setting shifts from the enclosed, probably stuffy classroom with its dry facts and figures to the fresh "mystical moist night-air." Instead of hearing lecturing from the astronomer and applause from the audience, he experiences "perfect silence." Instead of abstract "charts and diagrams," he sees, directly and unmediated, the stars themselves. Whitman implies that this mystical, intuitive, direct way of knowing is superior to the second-hand, rational, intellectualized understanding that the scientist offers.

Whitman uses form and poetic language to reinforce his point. Writing the poem in free verse allows him to tailor the form to the content (instead of superimposing on it a pre-existing stanza pattern and rhyme scheme). For example, in the first half of the poem he keeps increasing the length of the lines. He also keeps repeating words and phrases ("when," "heard the astronomer," "lecture") and multiplying synonyms (proofs and figures, charts and diagrams, "to add, divide, and measure"). As a result, this part of the poem begins to drag and grow repetitious and boring – just as the lecture on astronomy does for the speaker of the poem. The repetition