Well I know it’s not Darien – it’s the little hill at St Catherine’s Dub at Collieston.  But these words from John Keats’ poem, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer came to my mind when I looked at this picture.   Poppy is unusually still, staring out to sea ‘like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes  he star’d at the Pacific’.

When I try to pose Poppy in a picture she will often choose to look to the side rather than straight to camera. If I call to her, she will move towards me away from the carefully placed position I have chosen for the picture.   And getting two dogs to look at me at the same time…..well more work needed I think.

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.