When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery, 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 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.
[5]
[10]
GLOSSARY GLOSSARY
[2] glean’d: extracted information from [2] teeming: full of; brimming over
[3] charactery: the expression of thought through symbols or characters