When I have fears

Author’s note: John Keats wrote about the fear of dying too young. I take a different perspective.

When I have fears

By Wheston Chancellor Grove

When I have fears that I may live too long

And those held dear are before me perished

A rain so warm doth tenorize the soul’s song

Of love divine though vexed by liberation cherished

When I behold upon the white moon’s face

The painter’s brush, primed to make its mark

And ponder that I may have no lover left ‘cept shadow’s trace

‘Tis then I feel the cold and dread of my aching heart

Sleeping only to awake once more, and forevermore, to loneliness

And if ne’er I reach such heights again—

I think it far wiser to die young in the peak of manliness

Than to linger year after year, outliving all but memory’s friend

But if it be so, and you before me, whom I so love, first die—

Remember me this way, wherever you are, and voiceless meet my ageless cry.

(2017)

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When I have fears

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.

(1848)