Logos Virtual Library: Keats: To Homer

John Keats

John Keats (1795-1821)

To Homer

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;
Aye 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 befel
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.