#11 (poem #8) 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.

 

 

   This poem basically symbolizes every student ever, and what I mean by that is that when we hear about something epic and amazing, we have our expectations set out for us. Like when we sign up for a certain class, we think that it’s going to be all fun, but in reality, it’s kind of suckish. For example, when I signed up for filmmaking, I thought that it was going to be this super cool artsy class, but in reality, since my class didn’t want to put any effort into anything, we just watched movies and wrote reviews the whole time. (not that it was Mazza’s fault that the students didn’t care), but either way, I was highly disappointed. So this was exactly what happened with the speaker, he was stoked to be learning about space and astronomy and how the stars looked like, but to his disappointment, the astronomer discussed the mathematics behind it. And he excuses himself from the class (due to nausea, or wanting to puke from boredom), and looks out into the sky to see the stars. I feel like this moment was some sort of revelation about how life actually is like. What I mean by that, is that when we are younger, we think that we could accomplish anything and that the world is limitless and effort isn’t needed, (so unlimited that we could go to space) and when we realize that life is what you make of it, with hard work and determination, we sort of get lazy and just want to skip to the fun stuff. To succeed in life, you sometimes have to do something we dread, which brings up the point of Expectations vs Reality. Sometimes, what we expect doesn’t match the reality and you just have to deal with it.