When I heard the poet talking about hearing the learn’d astronomer,
When the poet mentioned how all the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before him,
When the poet described how he was shown the charts and diagrams, and how to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the poet where he read with much applause in the lecture-room,
When I realized of a sudden, how the theme of the poem was “ignorance is bliss” and “beauty and science are incompatible,” and [holding hands over ears] “please! O please! don’t tell me how anything in this Cosmos works, since then it would cease to be ‘poetic’!”
How soon very accountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the rational moist night-air, time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars,
Thinking about the fascinating Bethe-Weizsäcker-cycle.
(Sept. 25, 2009)
Many Worlds Theory 
I look forward to reading your musings. Good luck!
[…] Age meaning of the quote is this: “I’d rather daydream than study.” It’s Walt Whitman’s “learn’d astronomer” nonsense all over […]
[…] meaning of the quote is this: “I’d rather daydream than study.” It’s Walt Whitman’s “learn’d astronomer” nonsense all over […]
Best parody poem ever! Loved your reference to the CNO cycle! I, too, disagree with the notion that science and beauty, or even science and the humanities at large, are incompatible. Richard Feynman eloquently expressed his own views on the subject in his “Ode to a Flower.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E
Best parodied poem ever! Loved your reference to the CNO cycle, the starting point on the road to the synthesis of heavy elements from which life first arose.
“Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars,
Thinking about the fascinating Bethe-Weizsäcker-cycle
And the fact that we are all star stuff.”
The Star In You: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/star-in-you.html
The Most Astounding Fact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU
I, too, disagree with the notion that science and beauty, or even science and the humanities at large, are incompatible. Richard Feynman eloquently expressed his own views on the subject in his “Ode to a Flower.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E