John Keats - On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

May 11, 2011 - John Keats died in his twenties, but is still considered one of the best poets of the Romantic era of poetry.

On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

My spirit is too weak--mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die
Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep,
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time--with a billowy main-- A sun--a shadow of a magnitude.

Copy written materials are not mine and copy rights are retained by their respective owner(s). Actual lines of verse are reproduced here for educational, not-for-profit purposes.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Poem
• Poetry
• Poet
• Poets
• John
• Keats
• Chicago
• Spoken
• Word
• Aloud
• Elgin
• Greece
• Greek
• Marble
• Marbles
• Every
• Day
• Everyday
• 1795
• 1821
• England
• Great
• Britain
• London
• Romantic
• keeppoetryalive