On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
At more than double the age of Keats
I found the book of which he bleats
Of new-found worlds and other trash
I plucked it up, laid down the cash
& Took it home across the seas
Where I laid it aside to learn Japanese.
Then found it again at 55
My Japanese enough to survive
(Though not as good as I'd like it to be),
But let us return to this Poetry:
The pages are yellow, the binding is loose,
The words are not the words I'd choose,
But still and all it's not too bad:
Old Chapman was a right clever lad.
Whole chapters deliver Achilles' wrath
In lines that hobble down the breath
Like a dish-footed Shire on ill-trimmed hooves
Or a sqeaky trolley on worn-out grooves.
Yet the fascination surely remains
Of who stabbed whom & who splattered whose brains.
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