Which bars in fealty to apollo hold

One evening in October, , young Keats, still only 21, spent the evening with his old school friend, Cowden-Clarke. All night they read aloud translations of Homer by the Elizabethan poet and dramatist George Chapman Here is the first great poem that Keats has composed.

In the next three years all his poetry will be written before he contracts tuberculosis from his brother Tom and will die in Rome five years later. 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-browed 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 stared at the Pacific — and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

In line one Keats is referring to poetry of supreme achievement but his metaphor could also allude to the search by explorers like Cortez for gold in the New World. Notes in fealty : as feudal under-lords. Originally Keats wrote: Yet could I never judge what men could mean. Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in Keats is wrong. It was Bilboa, not Cortez, who discovered the Pacific. Keats has still written a brilliant sonnet. The manuscripts of his poems with his own corrections can be seen in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

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Lamia [Left to herself]. Left to herself, the serpent now began To change; her elfin blood in madness ran, Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent, Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent; Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear, Hot, glaz'd, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.

The colours all inflam'd throughout her train, She writh'd about, convuls'd with scarlet pain: A deep volcanian yellow took the place Of all her milder-mooned body's grace; And, as the lava ravishes the mead, Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede; Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars, Eclips'd her crescents, and lick'd up her stars: So that, in moments few, she was undrest Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst, And rubious-argent: of all these bereft, Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.

This poem is in the public domain. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet never did I 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 stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats To Fanny Physician Nature! O ease my heart of verse and let me rest; Throw me upon thy tripod, till the flood Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast. A theme! Great Nature!

I come—I see thee, as thou standest there, Beckon me out into the wintry air. Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast? What stare outfaces now my silver moon!