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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO HAYDON, WITH A SONNET WRITTEN ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES by JOHN KEATS

Poet Analysis

First Line: HAYDON! FORGIVE ME THAT I CANNOT SPEAK
Last Line: OF THEIR STAR IN THE EAST, AND GONE TO WORSHIP THEM.

(ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES)

HAYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively on these mighty things;
Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings--
That what I want I know not where to seek:
And think that I would not be over meek
In rolling out upfollow'd thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak--
Think too, that all those numbers should be thine;
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem?
For when men star'd at what was most divine
With browless idiotism--o'erwise phlegm--
Thou hadst beheld the Hesperean shine
Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.



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