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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  John Keats (1795–1821)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

I. “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 Cortes 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.