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 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.