What Occasions The Greater Part Of The

Much Have I Traveled 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 Stared At The Pacific, And All His Men Look'd At Each Other With A Wild Surmise, Silent, Upon A Peak In Darien.

No Sooner Had I Stepp'd Into These Pleasures Than I Began To Think Of Rhymes And Measures: The Air That Floated By Me Seem'd To Say 'write! Thou Wilt Never Have A Better Day.

Life Is But A Day; A Fragile Dewdrop On Its Perilous Way From A Tree's Summit.

A Long Poem Is A Test Of Invention Which I Take To Be The Polar Star Of Poetry, As Fancy Is The Sails, And Imagination The Rudder.

Fade Far Away, Dissolve, And Quite Forget.