Read this statement by C. K. Williams about Walt Whitman. For a young poet, reading Whitman is sheer revelation, sheer wonder, a delight bordering on, then plunging into disbelief. How could all this have come to pass? . . . These countless images of daily life, of common life made uncommon, and the most boldly uncommon made jarringly intimate? This is best reflected in “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” when Whitman hears the astronomer’s lecture Whitman looks at charts and diagrams Whitman becomes tired and sick and wanders off Whitman goes out at night and looks at the stars