The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/To Homer

by John Keats

TO HOMER

The date 1818 was affixed to this by Lord Houghton in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, where it was first published, and is found also where it occurs in the Dilke manuscripts. In a letter to Reynolds, dated April 27, 1818, Keats writes eagerly of his desire to study Greek.

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,
Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.
So thou wast blind!—but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,
And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;
Ay on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green;
There is a budding morrow in midnight;
There is a triple sight in blindness keen:
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.