this guy was pretty smart

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
Leaves of Grass: By the Roadside (1855)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I think I've been ranging columns. Goddammitt, Walt! Just ... goddammitt.