On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
by John Keats

English Romantic lyric poet. His first published volume (1817) included On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer and Sleep and Poetry; Endymion followed (1818); many of his best-known poems including The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode of a Grecian Urn and To Autumn were written between 1818-1819 and published in a volume in 1820. His letters have also come to be considered as part of his works. Keats is one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. Other Romantic poets include Burns, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Blake.

← Previous Poem John Keats Next Poem →

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
by John Keats

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 Cortez 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.

← Previous Poem John Keats Next Poem →

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats