Poem 1:
“When I Have Fears”
-John Keats (1818)
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.
Poem 2:
“Mezzo Cammin*”
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1842)
Written at Boppard on the Rhine August 25, 1842,
Just Before Leaving for Home
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract** of Death far thundering from the heights.
*from the first line of Dante’s Divine Comedy: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (“Midway upon the journey of our life”).
**A large waterfall
The big question presented in the prompt regarding these two poems is how the speaker comes to see his situation/predicament as his thought on it deepens. Keats’s poem answers this question by ending on a note of meaninglessness as the speaker realizes his fears of death will get him nowhere, and Longfellow’s has a more hopeful ending as the speaker sees the time he has left to live as an opportunity.
Thesis: While Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin” reflects feelings of regret from the speaker for not accomplishing the things he wanted to in his youth and optimism when looking towards the future, Keats’s “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be” puts a fear of death at ease by making the powerful parts of life seem completely irrelevant.
BP 1: Symbolism is used in each poem to portray the path of life and the things of great value that come with it.
Keats: “‘Til love and fame to nothingness do sink”
Longfellow: “Though, halfway up the hill, I see the Past”
BP 2: Imagery shows what each speaker’s outlook on life boils down to and ultimately how he will live out the rest of his life.
Keats: “The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights”
Longfellow: “Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone”