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John Keats wrote the sonnet When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be in 1817 and published it in 1818. The fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter takes the form of a Shakespearean or Elizabethan Sonnet, which follows a standardized rhyme scheme, and consists of three quatrains and a couplet.

This poem by Keats serves as the basis for many of his later works.^{[citation needed]}

In the sonnet, the Speaker first discusses three things that he is concerned with missing in life. In the first quatrain, the Speaker describes his fear of dying before being able to glean his "teeming brain" of all the poetry within it. The second quatrain continues the same theme, using a metaphor of tracing the shadows of clouds to describe his fear of dying before writing great poetry. In the third quatrain, he talks about his fears of death robbing him of his love, the "fair creature of an hour". This is believed to have been Keats' fiancé, whom he was secretly engaged to.^{[citation needed]} In the final couplet of the poem, the Speaker tells the reader that upon considering these fears, he realizes that in the end the fact is simply that he is going to die, and all of these other things- fame, poetry, greatness and love, "to nothingness do sink"- in other words, they become worthless to him if he is going to die anyway. Also in the final couplet Keats says 'then on the shore of the wide world,' which suggests that Keats is on the edge between life and death, because at the time he knew he would soon die of T.B.

[edit] External links

• Comments on this poem from Everything2
• The text of the poem
• Audio - hear the poem