The Terror of Death
John Keats · 1819
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. John Keats. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piléd 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 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.