Poetry

  <lg type="sonnet">
    <head>On First Looking into Chapman's Homer</head>
    <lg type="quatrain">
      <l>Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,</l>
      <l>And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;</l>
      <l>Round many western islands have I been</l>
      <l>Which bards in fealty to <persName>Apollo</persName> 
         hold.</l>
    </lg>
    <lg type="quatrain">
      <l>Oft of one wide expanse had I been told</l>
      <l>That deep-brow’d <persName>Homer</persName> ruled as 
         his demesne;</l>
      <l>Yet did I never breathe its pure serene</l>
      <l>Till I heard <persName>Chapman</persName> speak out 
         loud and bold:</l>
    </lg>
    <lg type="sestet">
      <l>Then felt I like some watcher of the skies</l>
      <l>When a new planet swims into his ken;</l>
      <l>Or like stout <persName>Cortez</persName> when 
         with eagle eyes</l>
      <l>He star’d at the <placeName>Pacific</placeName>—and 
         all his men</l>
      <l>Look'd at each other with a wild surmise&#x2014;</l>
      <l>Silent, upon a peak in <placeName>Darien</placeName>.</l>
    </lg> 
  </lg>
Basic Manuscript and Physical Document Encoding slide 08 of 16
© 2010 Syd Bauman, Julia Flanders, and the Women Writers Project This TEI-encoded XML file is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (Unported) license.