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.
[8] Chapman: classical scholar who translated the Iliad and the Odyssey into English
[10] ken: line of vision
[11] Cortez: Spanish Conquistador. Here, Keats is confusing Cortez with another Spanish explorer, Balboa, who was the first to cross the Pacific from the Americas
[13] surmise: guess; assume
[14] Darien: sparsely populated province in eastern Panama from where Balboa began his expedition
