Archaic Torso of Apollo Awe and Amazement Quotes

The sense of awe the speaker feels is also tinged with a kind of fear. This is a pretty common occurrence with descriptions of awe—thus the earlier common usage of the word "awful" to describe something that is terrifying and beautiful at the same time. The notion that there's a higher power in the world—whether it's beauty or divinity, or both, or neither—is both great and terrible.

This is the real kicker in this poem. The speaker is so overawed with this encounter with the aesthetic realm that he feels—as we are meant to feel—like his life has been directly affected.