On Never Looking into Chapman’s Homer
Here is another thing I’ve never done
in my fifty-two years. I’ve traveled some
in realms of gold – as John Keats did – and seen
at least one kingdom. And by that, I mean
Great Britain. I have seen the Most Serene
Republic, where the starlings cut the clean
blue air above the campanile. One
might say I’ve been to Europe, but the sum
of all I’ve seen is not equivalent
to Keats’s thrill of recognition, bent
above his books like Herschel at his glass
to read Homer in English. Not one cent
of mine has gone on Chapman, not a brass
farthing. I’ve spent more time eating grass.
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