The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/Sonnet: 'When I have fears that I may cease to be'

by John Keats

SONNET

First published in Life, Letters and Literary Remains, but dated 1817 in a manuscript copy owned by Sir Charles Dilke. Keats sends it as his 'last sonnet' in a letter to Reynolds written on the last day of January, 1818.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pilèd books, in charactry,
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.