Keats Homer

Ode on a Grecian Urn

                        I

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

  Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

  Of deities or mortals, or of both,

    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

                        II

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

  For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

                        III

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

  For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

  Forever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

    Forever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

  That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

                        IV

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

  To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

  And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

    Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

  Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

    Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

                        V

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

  Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

  Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

  When old age shall this generation waste,

    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

  Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

Much have I traveled 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 desmene;

   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.