Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Keats. 17951821634. On first looking into Chapman’s Homer
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 stared at the Pacific—and all his men | |
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise— | |
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. |