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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
        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;
    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.
Other works by John Keats...



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