When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be, BY JOHN KEATS
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred 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.
The World Is Too Much With Us, BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
NB Keats died at 25.
I agree, Fliss, the long Keats poems can be a bit of a challenge – I think Wordsworth is better in that vein, but then, he had more time. He is quite good at being measured. I’ve been to the Lake District as well and it is a splendid place to go walking and compose poetry. Dorothy gets a lot more credit these days. Phil, it’s good to hear you are enjoying this series! I’ve not quite run out yet. Keats is tremendous, and his impact is I think worthwhile, but you are quite right, there are points in this poem where one feels Keats at work getting rhyme (charactery) and meter (what is it – winged with two syllables?) in order. A little strain, which Wordsworth doesn’t seem to have. OTOH, he’s speaking of his early death, and he was right about that. I think the classical references at the end were Wordsworth’s only access to the re-magification of the world, if you’ll allow me to invent a word. He wants magic back and this is how he gets there. The Romantics were much more Classical than they are sometimes given credit for, all steeped in Classical education, even the somewhat self-taught Keats. But when Keats writes “Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,” he’s really only been to Britain at the time, so the UK is the obvious reference – a realm indeed! 
