On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
Original Text
The Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. W. Garrod, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958): 478.
2 Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
3 And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep
4Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
5Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.
6 Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep
7 That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
8Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
9Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
10 Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
11So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
12 That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
14 A sun -- a shadow of a magnitude.
Notes
1] Elgin Marbles: fragmentary sculptures taken largely from the frieze and pediment of the Parthenon in Athens by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766-1841), sold to the British government, and placed in the British Museum in 1816. Back to Line
13] main: sea. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1817
Publication Notes
In The Examiner.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2007
Rhyme
Form