John Keats

When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be

By John Keats

(written in 1818, published posthumously in 1848)

When I have fears that I may cease to be 

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, 

Before high-piled books, in charact’ry, 

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.

Poetry

Metrical Feet: a lesson for a boy

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1806)

Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl's trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long.
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride --
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer.

If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these meters to show it,
WIth sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet --
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S.T. Colerige. 

Poetry