3B+Robak

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The poem, //When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer// by Walt Whitman, is presented in a boring way at first, when Whitman talks about all the in-depth details of the astronomers learning's. "When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,/ divide, and measure them" (Whitman 273). Whitman presents this in a boring way at first to show that the simplicity of things means more to him. The words the at author used in the poem, for instance, "figures", "columns", "charts", and "diagrams", are not a very strong word choice. As the poem comes to an end, Whitman changes the tone into a happier mood by having the reader wander away from the details of astronomy and into the simplicity of it: "In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,/ Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars" (Whitman 273). Whitman uses stronger word choice, such as "mystical", "moist", and "perfect silence", to show that the subject became more passionate about the sky when he took away all the details that came with it.

A poem in response to //When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer// in support of it:

As I look up in the night sky, As I see the stars whizzing by, Shinning and bright, so full of hope as I look through my telescope, I wonder how scientists can make them so complex with all kinds of books and texts, Making them lose their simplicities, Destroying their beauty with theories and making them seem so dangerous and hot, Developing them into something they're not, But all I do is look up in perfect silence at the shinning stars.