John Keats, “On Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” autograph manuscript, 1816. MA 214.3. Purchased by Belle da Costa Greene on behalf of J. P. Morgan, Jr., 1915.
To Mariane Reynolds —
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 featly to Apollo hold
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep brow’d Homer rules as his Demesne
Yet could I never judge what Men could mean
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold
Then felt I like one 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 at each other with a wild surmise
Silent upon a Peak in Darien.