On Contemplating my Belly Button

The title just came to me at 4.00am this morning as I lay awake and it got me thinking wouldn’t it be a great blog or poem title as it brought suddenly to mind my school days and having to dissect Keat’s sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816) in English Lit. But then I don’t think I could do a sonnet because it sounded like one to me – Wendy Cope is best for those. So I’ll just have to write a blog with that name until the muse takes me for a poetic attempt.

xx

PS This is John Keat’s sonnet that I had to dissect and in the vein of “Whose Line is It Anyway?” a thousand points apiece for all the classical references you spot. Nowadays they would just write a book review and say “I liked it a lot”, I’m sure :)

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-browed 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.