When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be"

by John Keats

Christine Shaw

October 8, 2008

 

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"The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing every place interesting - "
-John Keats to his brother George, 1819

When I have fears that I may cease to be
    Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
    Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd 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 faery 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
.