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-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.

- John Keats