WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

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.

 When the intelligent reader reads the title, he expect the poem to be about a person who heard a lesson of astronomy, the use of the first person in the title means that the protagonist will narrate a personal experience.

The layout is not regular, it is composed by free verses.

The character  listened to the astronomer who shows the class a lot of graphics and sky maps that they have to add, to divide.  But the student is not .

The choice of the verb “to hear” instead of “to listen” it’s very important because let the reader understands that the narrator was forced to do it.

Suddenly, the character became sick and tired and decided to leave the class, going out to look at the stars in perfect silence.

The passive form of the verbs suggests that the narrator was subjected to proofs and figures.

In addition, “perfect silence” is in contrast with much applause giving the image a force even bigger. The poetry starts with the astronomer and ends with the stars, a topic of astronomy, so there is a climax due to the presence of anaphora “when”. This anaphora is from the general to the particular and the whole poem goes from the general to the particular.