Sonnet: When I have fears

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-ripened grain;
When I behold upon the night's starred 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 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.

-John Keats, 1848

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