A Little Poetry for You: Keats

It's Poetry Friday!

Susan has the round-up this week over at Chicken Spaghetti.

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I've always preferred the Victorian poets like Tennyson and Browning to the Romantics. But even so, I have a soft spot for John Keats ever since I spent one winter afternoon in college reading a collection of his letters. His poetic career was so short, yet brilliant. And the letters he wrote, leading right up to his death at the age of 25, can send chills up your spine with the language, the thought and the sentiment.

I found this wonderful site tonight, where you can view original manuscripts, read letters, find biographical information, and browse the poetry of John Keats. You will also find this wonderful quote there, right at the top of the site:

"The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing every place interesting."

I encourage you to spend some time at the site, and see if you don't fall in love with Keats too.

Here's my Keats selection for this installment of Poetry Friday:

When I have fears that I may cease to be
by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
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.