When I Have Fears Essay, Research Paper

When I Have Fears is a poem written by John Keats. He uses a style of writing that has no periods in this particular poem. There are three when clauses, which put some separation in the writing. Identifying these clauses and examining them is this papers objective.

The first clause starts with the first line, beginning with When I have fears This clause talks about some intuition Mr. Keats has as he begins documenting his life in poetry. The speaker has some nervousness, some type of apprehension about what he is about to write. He wants to portray what he is feeling but fears that he will not be able to do so in a valuable manner. That is all contained in the first four lines of this poem.

The second when clause starts on the fifth line with When I behold. This clause has much depression contained in it. Keats is sitting there looking up at the clear starry sky, and thinking to himself that there is so much out there that he is not experiencing. The main thing being love. He knows there is some perfect female out there that he just hasn t found. He wants to find her, and he wants to write about her in his poetry. That is the gist of the second clause.

The third and final clause starts with And when I feel, fair creature of an hour. This goes along with the second clause with the idea of love. The fair creature of an hour is a girl, not just any girl but the girl for him. He thinks to himself that he will never find her, and never get to look into her eyes and love her. He not only wants to love her but he wants to write about his feelings in his poetry. He can t write about it if he doesn t experience it. The last line Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. Is his way of saying that he is giving up on all of it. He knows he will never find her, and never write about it, hence he will never have love or fame, so they sink into nothing.