Andrew Bolt: Favourite Sonnets

Two sonnets selected by Andrew Bolt and read by Lionel Farrell

Remember by Christina Rosetti

Remember me when I am gone away, 
Gone far away into the silent land; 
When you can no more hold me by the hand, 
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d: 
Only remember me; you understand 
It will be late to counsel then or pray. 
Yet if you should forget me for a while 
And afterwards remember, do not grieve: 
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, 
Better by far you should forget and smile 
Than that you should remember and be sad.

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats

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 star’d at the Pacific–and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise|
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Listen to Andrew’s passionate speech at the launch of Keith Windschuttle’s new book on the Stolen Generations here…