“On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” - John Keats

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Posted by toj8j@alumni.virginia.edu, 12/28/02 at 6:16:14 PM.

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 undescribable 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.

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Last updated Saturday, January 17, 2004 at 3:29:51 PM.

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