When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer By Walt Whitman

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

By Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman is becoming one of my favorite poems, and this is my favorite one of his. “When  I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” describes someone, possibly Whitman, in a lecture given by an astronomer. The narrator then “gets tired and sick” and leaves and goes to stare at the stars. Whitman isn't just describing someone leaving a lecture, he is saying that sometimes it is better to leave things as a mystery, then to have them be explained as a something scientific and, in this case, as “charts and diagrams”.

Whitman describes the lecture as a place where “the proofs, the figures, were ranged, in columns”. I see that as the place where imagination died, creativity and the mystery of everything is sucked out and everything is explained. Whitman had the narrator “wandered off by myself” as a symbol for ignoring the facts. The narrator wanders off because he doesn't want to give in to the idea that space, the universe, the entire idea of existence to be explained. The narrator, and Whitman want to keep some mystery and creativity and imagination in their lives, and that  is why  he “looked up at the perfect silence of the stars” or looking up to a place where mystery and creativity and imagination flourish and continue to cultivate.

This poem uses the idea of an astronomer, a person who whole purpose is to study the 

stars and everything around it as metaphor for the answer to a question, but with what 

Whitman is saying, it's sometimes better to leave the question unanswered, than to have an 

answer because mystery is the best way to cultivate creativity and imagination.

A Noiseless Patient Spider By Walt Whitman

Nick Osbahr

A Noiseless Patient Spider By Walt Whitman

This poem has become one of my favorite poems. At the start , you learn about a spider, silent and patient, waiting and trying to figure out how to explore his surroundings. Whitman then begins the second stanza with “And you O my soul where you stand,” and everything starts to become clear. Whitman creates this metaphor of this miniscule spider in the enormous world, which has only gotten bigger since he had written this poem. Whitman continues with “Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,”continuing describing that our souls are surrounded by empty, isolating space. Whit then writes that our souls are “Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,” explaining that the loneliness our souls have to endure is because we are just trying to find the one special person who we belong with, or in this case our actual soul mate. We just have to continue living life until things fall into place and we can finally connect, or at whitman states “Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,” and when we can create this moldable foundation that can hold us together through anything.

Whitman finishes the poem with the line “Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.” bringing in the whole spider analogy back into play . He uses the idea of the spider as a representation of the soul to emphasis the idea of the isolated soul inside a huge world, but he could have easily used something smaller, for example , and ant. Whitman uses the spider because they are so misunderstood. Spiders like love and destiny, are very important to life and the world, but at the same time they are sometimes hated, and sometimes oppressed, unwanted and killed.

Whitman created an amazing love poem that at first glance seems to not even be close 

to what people view as a love poem, but in deeper meaning is one. Whitman created a 

misunderstood love poem; he created a spider.

Poetry Response

Nick Osbahr

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

William Butler Yeats

This poem, though with a short length, is filled with a powerful meaning. It discusses that everyone is told lies in their youth, and as we mature, and enter into adulthood,we understand that these are just lies we were told.  The poem compares the trivial ¨truths” that we are told as leaves to as  plants, and that as we mature, the leaves fall off, so ¨Now  I may wither into the truth.¨ The poem uses the truth as a metaphor for adulthood, and that all the childish things we are told just ¨wither” away as we enter and live among others in the real world.

The poem declares that ¨though leaves are many, the root is one;¨ which I felt as if it is explaining that there are many ¨truths” we are told. and with these truths, there is always one spot to where we get this information, and that is from someone who we trust. Along with that,  Yeats uses an extended metaphor of a flower as the life of a person emerging into adulthood. Here he uses the flower as a beautiful lie, while he uses the root as the ugly truth.

Yeats also addresses the stereotypical idea that older people are the wises. He explains throughout the poem that peoples youth is wasted due to the lies, and safety net of beliefs, people place on and around their children. He also explains that as the years of youth wither away, the truth is slowly revealed, causing older people to be wser than the youth, because there is no rose colored glass causing the world to be viewed differently than it already is.