Why the nights grow less dark, and what to do about it

, the greatest male American poet of the 19th century, and Billy Bragg, the self-proclaimed big-nosed bard of Barking, may not at first seem to have much in common. But both have inveighed against interference with the solace, wonder and communion offered by the unspoiled and unmediated night sky. The protagonist of Whitman’s “When I heard the learn'd astronomer” walks out of an alienating lecture on the science of stars and planets. He wanders off by himself