When I have fearsby John Keats
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to beBefore 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 traceTheir 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 powerOf unreflecting love! – then on the shoreOf the wide world I stand alone, and thinkTill Love and Fame to nothingness do sink
I love that poem. I love it because it scares me so much. Those first 2 lines (When I have fears that I may cease to be, Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain. . . ) put the emotions that I’ve had for most of my life into perfect, powerful, poetic words. What if I die, and all my ideas, my stories, fictional and non, are lost forever? Where do they go? My whole vision, point of view, everything, imprisoned forever, with no hope of escape.
That’s why I want to get everything I can get down, while I’m still able to. My voice can be heard and if can get one person, just one person to say, “Hey, I never thought about it that way before.” I can go happy.
. . .
This is a huge afterthought, but it makes me so angry that John Keats is no longer alive. I mean, being a student of history, I realize that everyone that was someone is dead as of right now, but he’s the only one that it actually gets to me. I read his work, and can only think “Why, why, why?!”
I know he died in 1821 (just a tad bit before my time…) but he was only 25 and he had studied surgery and had a life of tradgedies and most famous poets had nothing by 25 and it’s just not fair!!!! Ah!!!!
. . . Ahem.
Sorry.
Point of entry: I should write about my experiences, before it’s too late.
Thank you.
