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.

Yet, how much MORE mystical the perfect silence of the stars when we're also able to measure them, their distance, their mass, and their purpose - what they mean for all that we cannot see.

There has to be a balance. Too much of either and not enough of both lends itself to error on both sides.

So, yes, Mr. Whitman. But also, incomplete.