A reflection on Whitman's "Learned Astronomer" and the grand dichotomy between experience and analysis

Question

The forest's gloom has deepened now,

Its burnished bronze fast run to gray

Beneath the mighty cedar bough

Where veery song has passed away.

And soon Orion will once more

Kneel down at Eridanus' shore

And Phaeton's plight with tear endow

The passage into night from day.

Adrift in Mare Cognitum

I scarcely seem to feel the tide

Of all I found so wearisome

When I made pause to subdivide

And analyze the warp and woof

Of simple gifts beyond reproof

As harvest time's chrysanthemum

Amask in dew at morningtide.

If I ascend Olympus Mons

To meditate on twofold moons

Will tempest brewing in my pons

Be heightened by their perilunes

Or are these twins the Gordian knot

That know but language polyglot

The quintessential sine qua nons

Forever two as they were hewn?

A forest gloom is home tonight

And there is mystery in the air

To beckon to an acolyte

In thrush's warbling solitaire.

If Euclid's postulates must bend

O let me know the love unpenned

In language of the recondite

To hear Orion's quiet prayer

Answer 1

Yes, you definitely have it. Olympus Mons is waiting for more...

Answer 2

o my...I really have no words.  I don't want to break the mood this put me in.

Answer 3

Just wonderful. Many thanks.

Answer 4

Well said, an enjoyable read as the words were tongued and meaning deciphered.  My compliments.

Answer 5

This poem took my breath away. Wonderful word choice, chained together with great skill. It is so heavy that I have to read it again to understand it fully.

Compliments.