Analysis of Sonnet: When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be
John Keats 1795 (Moorgate) – 1821 (Rome)
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
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.
Scheme | ABCBDEDECCCCFF |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111111 0111111101 0111101 1111001101 1101010111 1101010101 0111110111 111010111 01111101110 1111010111 1011000110 1111101 1011110101 1101110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 593 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 2 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 458 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 112 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 285 Views
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"Sonnet: When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23487/sonnet%3A-when-i-have-fears-that-i-may-cease-to-be>.
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