When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

John Keats

 
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  
  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.
 

Poems by This Author

Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever] by John Keats
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
Lamia [Left to herself] by John Keats
Left to herself, the serpent now began
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains by John Keats
After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
Bright Star by John Keats
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art
I cry your mercy—pity—love!—ay, love by John Keats
I cry your mercy—pity—love!—ay, love
In drear nighted December by John Keats
In drear nighted December
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles by John Keats
My spirit is too weak—mortality
On the Grasshopper and the Cricket by John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead:
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone by John Keats
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone
The Eve of St. Agnes, XXIII, [Out went the taper as she hurried in] by John Keats
Out went the taper as she hurried in
The Human Seasons by John Keats
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
This Living Hand by John Keats
This living hand, now warm and capable
To a Friend who sent me some Roses by John Keats
As late I rambled in the happy fields
To Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
To Fanny by John Keats
Physician Nature! let my spirit blood
To Haydon with a Sonnet Written on Seeing the Elgin Marbles by John Keats
Haydon! Forgive me, that I cannot speak


Further Reading

Related Poems
Lines: 'When the Lamp is Shattered'
by Percy Bysshe Shelley