When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

by John Keats

Hear this poem read.

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.