English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 541. The Terror of Death |
| | | John Keats (1795–1821) |
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| WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be | |
| Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, | |
| Before high-pile´d books, in charact’ry | |
| Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; | |
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| When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, | 5 |
| Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, | |
| And think that I may never live to trace | |
| Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; | |
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| And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! | |
| That I shall never look upon thee more, | 10 |
| Never have relish in the fairy 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. | |
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