On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer - 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 Pacific—and all his men  

Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—  

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats