On Seeing The Elgin Marbles For The First Time

John Keats

My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined 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 indescribable 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.

Next 10 Poems

• John Keats : On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again
• John Keats : On The Grasshopper And Cricket
• John Keats : On The Sea
• John Keats : Robin Hood
• John Keats : Song Of The Indian Maid, From 'endymion'
• John Keats : Sonnet: On The Sonnet
• John Keats : Stanzas
• John Keats : The Day Is Gone, And All Its Sweets Are Gone
• John Keats : The Dove
• John Keats : The Eve Of St. Agnes

Previous 10 Poems

• John Keats : On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour
• John Keats : On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
• John Keats : On Fame
• John Keats : Ode To Psyche
• John Keats : Ode To Fanny
• John Keats : Ode To Autumn
• John Keats : Ode To A Nightingale
• John Keats : Ode On Melancholy
• John Keats : Ode On Indolence
• John Keats : Ode On A Grecian Urn