The Bicentenary of John Keats

Margaret Williamson
Written on the Bicentenary of the Death of John Keats
24 February 2021

Inspired by an excellent Radio 4 series commemorating the poet, I searched for a travel-related Sonnet. This one recalls not only the world of Homer but ends in Darien: a link to the memory of our late friend Ian Hibell and his legendary crossing of the Darien Gap by bicycle.
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On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
John Keats, 1816

“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."

 

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