When love and fear combine you find yourself reading When I have fears by John Keats. It is a wonderful poem about the things that matter most in life. It made me think about the things that matter most in my life. It seems a lot of the poems I have been reading recently have helped in the process, because so many of them have dealt with death. But Keats’ When I have fears make me wonder what my fears truly are.
When I behold upon the night’s starred face,
"Huge cloudy symbols of high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;” (425, lines 5-8)
The idea of not reaching my goals or the possibilities that are head frighten me as they do Keats in the lines before. What would I miss? Who would miss me? Would I have accomplished all that I possibly could?
It seems that chance is very important to Keats and his of idea of living life to its fullest. The idea of not having chance seems to be more frightening that opportunity. For me, not having the opportunity to explore or to conquer is what frightens me. I want to be able to accomplish all that I set out to before I leave this Earth.
But why is accomplishing much important to me? That is the question I think Keats would like for me to answer. I would simply answer, “I could have not lived to accomplish nothing at all.”
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4 comments:
It was interesting reading your blog on "When I Have Fears" by John Keats and how you have compared it to your own fears of not achieving your goals. Don't we all have fears about not being able to do something in life that we would like to achieve. However, Keats ends his poem by saying "Then on the shore of the wide world I stand alone and think, till love and fame to nothingness do sink," which I interpret to mean, he then realized that all that he had feared is trivial compared to what there is out there. However, you have brought up a good point at the end of your blog, "Why is accomplishing much important". This has left me wondering.
Chrishon,
Good start in your response to Keats's poem, with an apt quotation to analyze and some insightful speculation. Compared to your best work, though, this post seems a bit cursory, as if you ran low on time and attention.
I really like how you took this poem and related it to you own life experiences and fears. It's a common fear to have goals and not be able to achieve them. But what is life without fear? It is human nature to fear, and human nature to underachieve. At the end of this poem, it is as if Keats came to an understanding. He realizes that there are bigger things out there than fear, but one must overcome fear in order to see what is out there.
Fears! Always a great topic! I respect your fears. We definitely have a few of the same fears. Not reaching my goals is te main one that I worry about. Of course with this fear comes the fear of losing my backbone, my family. Someone that is willing to write about their fears deserves respect because it is definitely a topic that is hard to discuss. Especially to the public.
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