When I Have Fears I May Cease To Be...

When I have fears I may cease to be:

When I have fears I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain
Before high pled books, in charact'ry
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I Behold,upon the nigt's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may nere live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall nere look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of reflecting love-then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Mmm as my first post, it is interesting that it is also the name of my blog.I like the last line though...so... so what?
:D

The first four lines are about what the writer would like to get done before dying: expressing his ideas, having th "ripened grain" which means having harvested his poems and writing. He wishes to se his writing published and well known before he dies.

In the second stanza he refers to the mysteries of life and regrets hi will die without understanding them or "tracing them".

The third quatrain is about his love, and how he will never be able to relive it again after dying. He believes everything will be lost in death.

In the last two lines Keat broods over life. He says he will stand alone and think about what into nothigness will become. I believe he chose those two words "love" and "fame" because they were very important in his life. This can be percieved thanks to the fact that the first stanza is about fame [his works ripened] and the third one is about love. That which he most cares about will be lost in death and that is what he really fears,not death in itself but losing what is precious to him..being lost into history; becoming part of a yard sale instead belonging in a library,so as to say.