Comparing The Poems ' When I Have Fears '

“The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are contrasting poems. They seem to be opposites of each other, “The Lamb” sends a message of innocence and purity, while “The Tyger” sends a message of evil, fear, and hate. “The Tyger” is definitely a stronger poem, it’s written in questions and progressively gets more and more intense. Both poem uses symbolism and the animal represents a quality. There are references to the Christian figure Jesus, it says in “The Lamb,” “For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child (14):” However there is no references to any religious figure in “The Tyger.” “The Lamb” is written in a question and answer format. The first stanza was a series of questions that asked who created such innocence. Afterward the first stanza, it’s followed by a stanza of answers and responses to the first stanza. The whole poem is written in a gentle nature that calms the reader and adds assurance to the reader. However contrasting “The Lamb,” “The Tyger” is written very aggressively and makes the reader doubt and question the innocence of the world.

While both Keats and Longfellow often reflect on their own unfulfilled dreams and impending deaths, the poems however contrast on their own dispositions towards death and the future. Here, Keats expresses a fear of not having enough time to accomplish all that he believes he is capable of doing, but as he recognizes the enormity of the world and his own limitations of life, he realizes that his own mortal goals are meaningless in the long run of things. On the other hand, Longfellow speaks of a regret towards his inaction for allowing time to slip away from him in his past and is at a crossroads for the ominous future that looms ahead of him. Through the use of light and dark imagery, and personification, Keats and Longfellow similarly yet also differently, reflect on their own ideas for death and the futures that lay ahead of them.

The poem Mezzo Cammin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow explains his regretful life and his reasoning at why he didn’t live it to its full potential and how he looks at his past. It then looks to his future as being near and bearing a huge weight down on him. The way Longfellow talks about his life is depressing. He doesn’t speak of the good accomplishments, only the things he hasn’t done until he looks back into the past and then forward at how the future may be.

As people near the time of their deaths, they begin to reflect upon the history and events of their own lives. Both John Keats’ “When I have Fears” and Henry Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin” reflect upon the speakers’ fears and thoughts of death. However, the conclusions between these two poems end quite differently. Although both reflect upon Death’s grasp, Keats’ displays an appreciation and subtle satisfaction with the wonders of life, while Longfellow morbidly mourns his past inactions and fears what events the future may bring.

In the two poems, “When I Have Fears” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, both of the poets deal with the death that they believe is quickly approaching them and think back to their regrets in life. Keats during the time when this poem had been written had just seen his brother die of tuberculosis and due to this he believed he too would soon die. Longfellow at the time writing his poem had been 35 and due to this was most likely experiencing a mid-life crisis. Similarities between the two poems include the poem’s theme and the thoughts of death that the two men are dealing with. The main

There are lots of things in the poems that are similar and different both of the writers are different and similar in many ways .In the poem’s “When You Are Old” By W.B Yeats, and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” By Dylan Thomas.They have a bunch of similarities and differences.For example in each of the poems the theme of the poems are death and the narrator’s message in the rhyming pattern poems are both similar in the poems ,and the writing style of the poems are rhyme schemes and therefore they use different rhyme scheme in each of the poems.

One characteristic embedded in the minds of almost all humans is that of succumbing in pursuit of one’s aspirations, especially with the approach of death. The fear and enigmatic mystery of death at the brink of this shortcoming may cause one who is near death to re-evaluate life as a wasted opportunity or a broken path of dreams because of the inability to find any type of success. The sonnets “Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and “When I have Fears” by John Keats examine the thought processes of two people who submit to the struggles of life in a depressed way. While communicating a very similar foundational message and mood in a different way through diction and structure, the speakers in “Mezzo Cammin” and “When I Have Fears” identify their despair through likewise differing literary elements which complement and bring out the message intended by these troubled individuals.

"Death, Be Not Proud" by John Donne, "Because I could not stop for Death" and "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" by Emily Dickinson all have one theme in common: death. Typically, death is associated with negative connotations, but "Death, Be Not Proud" is a more cheerful tale of how death lost its sting. "Because I could not stop for Death" also has a similar theme because. Like the other two poems, "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" talks about an interruption of a person's death by a fly. "Death. Be Not Proud," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" are all poems revolving around the theme of death.

The poem "Journeys" by Lily Li Zhang and "Home" by Milly Wang both have their similarities and differences. Their are many different similarities between these two poems. Firstly, the two poems share the same human right which is, "Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living." This human right appears in "Journeys." The quote in "Journeys" that demonstrates this is "...burned the straw-thatched house row by blazing row until nothing was left but charred skills and sated flies." In the quote it states that they lived in straw-thatched houses and that they were maybe living in a war zone because the quote also states that this straw-thatched house was burned down, meaning that they now do not have shelter or an adequate standard

John Keats’ “When I have fears” and Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin” both reflect on the sorrow each poet feels recognizing their unaccomplished life goals as they are moving closer to death. However, their conclusions set them apart. By utilizing night imagery and diction of fear and hopelessness, Keats illustrates the meaningless nature of the speaker’s life. While Longfellow uses diction of regret and hope imagery to demonstrate the mornings of regrets. Both uses different rhyme schemes.

While both Keats and Longfellow’s poems, “When I Have Fears” and “Mezzo Cammin,” focus on the unfulfillment of goals in life and the menacing appearance of death, their final assumptions of death are related but different. Both poems share similarity focusing on the poets’ thoughts as they contemplate the inevitability of their deaths and whether their accomplishments have meaning after death, but the poets exhibit a different attiutude towards their subject. Keats fears that he will not be able to fully accomplish his life goals before he dies, but he acknowledges the frivolity of earthly aspirations when faced with death. On the other hand, Longfellow, while also mourning the loss of his chance to accomplish his goals, maintains comfort in the past compared to the uncertain future. Longfellow maintains a grim, pessimistic tone throughout his poem juxtaposes the almost hopeful tone Keats exhibits throughout his poem. Through the use of imagery, literary devices, and diction, Keats and Longfellow convey their overall contrasting attitudes toward death.

The tones of both of these poems have a similar melancholic and mournful tone, seeing as they deal with the theme of death. This tone matches how the writers were feeling after the passing of the beloved presidents in their time periods. But with these similar tones they have very different executions, “Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.”(Whitman 21-24) Whitman uses imagery and personification to convey a melancholic tone. Auden, on the other hand, has a more straightforward and lean style to his writing. “When a just

Keats poem, “When I Have Fears” expresses the writer’s fear of dying before he is able to fulfill his life as a writer. He wants to experience fame, become a writer and find someone to love. The very first line of the poem tells us that he has a fear of dying, because it states, “When I have fears that I may cease to be,” (Keats, Line 1). It is later on in the poem that the readers find out why he fears death.

In both of the poems “When I have fears” and “Mezzo Cammin” both are based on death and have a depairing tone. However in “When I have fears” is different from “Mezzo Cammin” because the man in the poem is trying his best to reach his goal, but ultimately fails making feel hopeless. They both have different shifts and endings that occur making both poems different from each other by the end result by the way they react to death. Both Keats and Longfellow have the same idea of death in the beginning of their poems. Keats’s beginnings in the first sentence “When I have fears that I may cease to be,” is similar to Longfellow’s “Half of my life is gone.”

The imminence of death can prove to be a more of a deterring factor from fulfillment than death itself. In the poems “When I Have Fears” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Longfellow, both poets reflect on their fear of death, however, Keats regrets that he may not fulfill his goals before death, while longfellow regrets that he did not fulfill his goals in the past. In this contrast between past and future, Longfellow looks back on all that he missed while living a comfortable youth and Keats is fearful that he may not experience all the world has to offer yet is hopeful that he will have a chance.