When I have fears that I may cease to be  
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,  
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,  
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.

John Keats 1795–1821