"When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain [...] "
— Keats, John (1795-1821)
Author
Date
1848
Metaphor
"When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain [...] "
Metaphor in Context
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
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
(ll. 1-14, p. 166)
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
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
(ll. 1-14, p. 166)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Keats, John. Complete Poems. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Date of Entry
09/27/2003
