To Homer / Keats, John

                                      1816
                                    TO HOMER
                                 by John Keats

        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.

                        THE END
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