Friday, February 25, 2005

In honor of my friends

My fellow poetry club members are hosting a campus-wide event tonight! I can't be there, but I wanted to commemorate this milestone - with poetry of course.

It's hard to explain poetry. You have to feel it.


On first looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travelled 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.

--John Keats

1 comment:

Sharon said...

Oh, Clint. I'm sure nobody minded!