On First Looking into Champan’s Homer
Much have I ravell’d in the reamls of gold
And may goodly states and kindgoms 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 stared at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
Silnet, upon a peak in Darien.
