Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/791

 JOHN KEATS

641 On first looking into Chapman's Homer

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 ]oud 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 -

Silent, upon a peak in Danen.

642 When I have Fears that I may cease to be

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-npen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's btarr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And feel that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour' That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relibh in the faery power Of unreflecting love; then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

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