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 the 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.
- Walt Whitman
I ran into a story referring to this poem today while studying the Orthodox Church and preparing for an upcoming paper. It reminds me of a little blog entry I posted a couple of years ago.
My prayer for myself and my fellow students is that we remember that there’s a vast difference between knowing about something and knowing Someone.