| John Keats (1795–1821). The Poetical Works of John Keats. 1884. |
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| 24. On first looking into Chapman’s Homer |
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| MUCH have I travell’d in the realms of gold, | |
| And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; | |
| Round many western islands have I been | |
| Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. | |
| Oft of one wide expanse had I been told | 5 |
| That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; | |
| Yet did I never breathe its pure serene | |
| Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: | |
| Then felt I like some watcher of the skies | |
| When a new planet swims into his ken; | 10 |
| Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes | |
| He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men | |
| Look’d at each other with a wild surmise— | |
| Silent, upon a peak in Darien. | |
| | | See Notes. |
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