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.
Note: Not my absolute favorite Keats poem -- neither Endymion nor Lamia are short enough to really post here, and even of his shorter poems, I like a few better, since Keats is one of my all-time favorite poets. But this is a poem about reading a book (specifically what was, at the time, the best English translation of Homer), and I'm a sucker for that topic.
Fun fact: this poem made me look into Chapman's Homer, back in the day, and I was like, jesus, this sucks :)
(Big Richmond Lattimore guy here.)
Yeah, I also looked into Chapman and was like, "man, Keats needed more options." :-)
Fitzgerald was my first Homer, and I like Lattimore, but am mostly partial to Fagles and Wilson these days (recency bias, I guess).
I got disillusioned when every new translation gets these breathy accolades about how it's some kind of revolutionary Happening. There's only so much you can do w/ a translation, and the space seems pretty well covered to me at this point.
It is kind of nice to re-read every few years with something new, I admit.