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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  635. When I have Fears that I may cease to be

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

John Keats. 1795–1821

635. When I have Fears that I may cease to be

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be 
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, 
Before high pil`d books, in charact’ry, 
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; 
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,         5
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 
And feel 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,  10
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.