Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Keats. 17951821635. 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. |