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By John Keats. When I have fears that I may cease to be. Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd 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.
"When I have Fears That I May Cease to be" is an Elizabethan (a.k.a. Shakespearean) sonnet written by John Keats in 1818, although it wasn't published until 1848, which was twenty-seven years after the poet's death. A lyric poem (in the sense that it expresses personal or intimate feelings), the poem centers on a speaker's anxiety about dying ...
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Keats’ first worry is this: what if I should die before I have written to the best of my ability? It is not merely death, therefore, that worries Keats, but death in infamy – ironic, as he is now one of the most renowned names of English poetry. In fact, Keats was so sure that he would die without creating a ripple in the world of English poetry th...
The second quatrain shows Keats viewing the beauty of the natural world. This natural world, full of miracles, is what Keats decides he can transform into poetry; the material that he works with is Keats’ own medium, the medium of nature – ‘when I behold, upon the night’s starred face, / huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, / and think that I may...
In the final stanza of ‘When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be’, he turns to the idea of love. The use of the phrase ‘fair creature of an hour’ shows that even his love is not immortal; the crux of this poem is the short nature of love, of creativity, of everything that had given Keats a glimmering view on life. The opening of the quatrain with t...
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The poem. When I have fears that I may cease to be. Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, 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.
"When I Have Fears" is a very personal confession of an emotion that intruded itself into the fabric of Keats' existence from at least 1816 on, the fear of an early death. The fact that both his parents were short-lived may account for the presence of this disturbing fear.
When I have fears that I may cease to be. Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd 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;
When I have fears that I may cease to be Lyrics. Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the...
