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Home  »  Parnassus  »  John Keats (1795–1821)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

John Keats (1795–1821)

MUCH have I travelled 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

That deep-browed 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;

Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific,—and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.