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Wilderness Walk: Consumptive Edition

Related Topics: John Keats, Poetry

I have a cold, and I feel like I'm dying, so this is going to be brief. The Wild won last night, and that was very kind of them. Today's poem is by John Keats, because he died from consumption, and when I have a cold I start thinking that I'm dying from consumption, because I have the temperament of a romantic poet.

When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be

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

This is a sonnet, which I would not have remembered if I hadn't taken out my text book instead of just looking online.