On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
By 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.
I never knew that the famous lines "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken" came from a poem about reading a great translation of Homer.
I know exactly how this feels, albeit minus the translation aspect. I've been reading 25 pages a day of The Lord of the Rings for my Lenten lectio divina and it has been transformative — both for my prayer life and for my feelings about the book itself. I am coming up on the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and am in the grip of just such a feeling.
