When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

“Lamia” by John Keats (1820)

John Keats’ Lamia contains some of his most famous and celebrated lines, in which the poem’s speaker laments the power of scientific inquiry to demystify nature by “unweav[ing] the rainbow” and robbing nature of her mysteries (“Do not all charms fly / At the mere touch of cold philosophy?”). This poem will be of interest to any reader wishing to compare Whitman’s ambivalence towards the scientific approach in “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” to Keats’ own sentimental approach to the natural world.

“The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth (1802)

A lyric poem by one of the most famous English Romantics, William Wordsworth, in which the poem’s speaker demonstrates mistrust towards the modern industrialized world and expresses a longing for the older and more nature-focused eras of the past.

“On the Beach at Night Alone” by Walt Whitman (1856)

In this poem, the speaker is once again on a solitary night walk admiring the night sky. As he does so, he reflects upon the vastness of the universe and human history, musing upon the ways in which all people and elements are permanently and mysteriously intertwined.