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.

Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,

Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): On the snuff of a candle the night before he died.—Raleigh's Remains, p. 258, ed. 1661.

Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,

Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Brothers.

This earth that bears thee dead

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,

Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,

In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;

Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,

And ever but in times of need at hand.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 400.