On first looking into Chapman’s Homer

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

I read this last night in a book of happy poems edited by Wendy Cope. It has two links to recent reading. "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken;" was quoted by Isaac Asimov in his book about Astronomy - "Eyes on the Universe" and the last bit about Cortez and "a peak in Darien" is used at the beginning of "Swallows and Amazons". All these links exist in the world and are just waiting for co-incidence in time to be revealed. I wrote something about this after the bit about natives of Nottingham but it got lost in the posting. Nigel, who is a colleague here, said that he felt that the revelation of such obscure links detracts from the information. I think I see what he means; the world is a mysterious place and the fact that communication now makes these obscurities more available to us, takes away some of the mystery which makes the world interesting. If you prove or disprove the existence of, say, the Loch Ness Monster, you remove all the mystery which has made it so attractive to people. Oh well - All is Blue.