Yoghurt On A Grecian Urn

Those, who can thus express a flowery
 tale more sweetly than our rhyme

What I think will be the final Keats poem for now is 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. I am covering this because when I used the following lines:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft, pipes, play on;

The lines are a more poetic version of 'the grass is always greener on the other side.' Of course, my inability to learn poetry restricts the efficacy of the quote as I inevitably butcher it. I will keep it short and only provide the first two verses.

Let's Make Some Yoghurt With John Keats

So far this blog has been a bit like milk*, uncultured. So let's add a bit of culture. I want to write about of my favourite poems. It feels lazy to reproduce all of a poem, but I do not see how else to do it.

* I used to say this joke about Yoghurt but apparently milk is uncultured yoghurt.

My first selection is Keats' "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer". Keats composed the poem after a night reading the translation of Homer's Odyssey by George Chapman. This poem reminds of the excitement of finding a new and great* source of enjoyment. For example, when I read the first Morse book and realised there were twelve more to go, or when I recorded seven series of Spooks and was hooked after two episodes.

* I've often heard people make some variation of the joke that the Great Wall Of China isn't that. Merriam-Webster has eleven definitions for the word great and 'used as a generalized term of approval' is eleventh. I learn this from 'the other Homer'. My variation on the joke, while still lame, at least makes sense: "Maybe afterwards we can go see the world's fastest drying paint".