In the mystical moist night-air

=0=0=0=

F i r e   A t   M y   B a c k

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

=0=0=0=

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.

= Walt Whitman =

=0=0=0=

Happy Friday