John Keats: When I Have Fears

John Keats

(1795 – 1821)

When I Have Fears

 

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

 

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

 

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the fairy power

Of unreflecting love; – then on the shore

 

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

 

John Keats poetry

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