8 MARCH 2008, Page 26

Magic lines

Sir: I find myself going along with most of Paul Johnson’s choices (And another thing, 1 March). But there is surely one grievous omission, one total blind spot. Mr Johnson claims Keats is his favourite poet but says that all of his poems are ‘too long’. Surely he has forgotten — rather than considered and rejected — ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’? Perhaps the first eight lines are not absolutely top-drawer Keats, but the last six are pure magic, with the last line ‘Silent, upon a peak in Darien’ echoing and re-echoing down the years from one’s first encounter with it.

Edward Carr

Peterborough