When I Have Fears - John Keats
A Poetic Contemplation of Mortality and Yearning
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high pilèd 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 feel 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’s sonnet “When I Have Fears” articulates the young poet’s intense anxiety about dying before achieving his artistic and emotional ambitions. Written in the Shakespearean sonnet form, it follows the poetic structure of three quatrains and a concluding couplet. The poem revolves around two principal fears: that Keats will not have enough time to pen all the ideas brimming in his imagination, and that he will miss out on the fullness of love.
In the opening lines, the speaker highlights a deep-seated worry that his creative potential will never be fully realized. He likens the act of writing to harvesting: gleaning the “teeming brain,” storing “full-ripen’d grain” in the form of poems or books. By connecting his artistic process to the natural cycle of growth and fruition, Keats underscores its importance to his sense of purpose.
He then shifts his focus to the cosmic scope of his desire, pointing to the “night’s starr’d face” and “cloudy symbols” that represent grand, imaginative ideas he yearns to capture. The fear here is that life may be too short for him to grasp and transform these vast visions into art.
The poem’s third shift deals with love. Keats laments the possibility of never fully experiencing or recounting the power of romance—“the faery power / Of unreflecting love.” This dimension of intimate connection holds equal weight to his creative endeavors.
In the final couplet, Keats imagines standing on “the shore / Of the wide world” and pondering his insignificance. Ultimately, the conclusion suggests that when faced with mortality, earthly desires—including Love and Fame—dwindle into nothing. Even as this realization imparts a kind of calm acceptance, the poem remains colored by the poet’s intense longing to accomplish his dreams while time is still on his side.
Key points
• Explores the fear of dying before realizing one’s potential.
• Balances artistic ambition with the desire for true love.
• Uses the Shakespearean sonnet form, blending structure with emotive intensity.
• Highlights Keats’s quintessential Romantic focus on imagination and mortality.
• Ends on a moment of stark reflection, revealing the poet’s sense of urgency and vulnerability.
