Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES, by JOHN KEATS



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: My spirit is too weak - mortality
Last Line: A sun - a shadow of a magnitude.
Subject(s): Elgin Marbles; Parthenon; Sculpture & Sculptors


My spirit is too weak - mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagin'd 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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