Sign Inventory 1 Week 2

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.

·         -Title is repeated in the first line.

·         -Changes from academic to experiential knowledge.

·         -No specific pattern of rhyme or meter. Written in free verse.

·         -Line lengths vary greatly.

·         -Uses contractions.

·         -“I” appears 5 times throughout the poem.

·         -The setting of the poem shifts from “lecture-room” to an outside setting.

·         -From “much applause” to “perfect silence”

·         -Indention used in lines 4 and 6.