On First Looking into Chapman's

Homer
BY JOHN KEATS

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 Pacificand all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

BY JOHN KEATS

My spirit is too weakmortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet tis a gentle luxury to weep
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the mornings eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old timewith a billowy main
A suna shadow of a magnitude.