Careful Words

planet (n.)

I was not born under a rhyming planet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 2.

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-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.

John Keats (1795-1821): On first looking into Chapman's Homer.