J Keats read by Classic Poetry Aloud:

http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/

Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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On first looking into Chapman’s Homer

by John Keats (1795 – 1821)

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.

First aired: 02 October, 2007

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